According to Richard Gray, who was a co-owner with his late brother Mac, the business was sold in 1974 due to economic reasons to Guida Dairy and the building was purchased by United Builders. The building is now part of Riverhead Lumber.

While Consumers began operation in 1934 in a wooden building also on Oak Street, its modern plant opened in January of 1957 under the leadership of Richard and Mac’s ’s father, Alton B. Gray, who was president and treasurer, and manager Fred P. Tourtellotte. Gray had purchased Consumers in 1942 when it was a small outfit. At that time, it was operated by George C. Andrews.

As a point of reference, in 1966 one could buy 30 quarts of milk from Consumers for $8.70, or about 25 cents a quart. And in the 1960s if you stopped by the plant you might have seen plant foreman Harold Dodge, George Jepherson, Frank Tucker and Frank DeSantis.

Gray’s father bought a farm just off Exit 1 in Ashaway from the Cottrell family in 1951 and named it Maple Lawn Farms. The farm started with yellow Guernseys and later changed to black and white Holsteins. His father sold the herd in 1961, and so ended Maple Lawn Farm. While the sale of the herd no longer provided Consumers with product, there were plenty of other farms the plant’s tanker truck visited to gather fresh milk.

Today, our milk comes from conglomerates and cooperatives that gather milk from a few existing farms and take on the job of pasteurization and distribution.

Among them is Rhody Fresh which started in 2004 with grants of $21,000 from the state Department of Environmental Management and $30,000 from the Rhode Island Foundation. Besides the grants, it secured $125,000 from the state’s Small Business Loan Fund. The cooperative gathers milk from the remaining dairies in the state and have it processed at a plant in Connecticut. It is then sold in area supermarkets.

Milk was first sold in cans and embossed glass quart and pint bottles. Some families bypassed the store and went directly to the farm to fill their own containers with milk.

In 1933, those plain milk bottles started to be decorated with a pyro-glazing or paint that displayed the name of the dairy and usually had a message on the back. They ranged from “drink milk for health,” “buy our ice cream” and “please return bottles” to messages urging support for the war effort during World War II. Moving into the 1960s, milk began to be sold in paper cartons. Now, milk is mostly sold in plastic bottles.

To list every dairy farm in Southern Rhode Island from the early 1900s to 1960 would require more space than is available here. Not every farm sold milk in a bottle with their name on it. And some were only in business for a generation. Farm life could not have been easy.

But let’s list a few. One of the earliest local milk bottles was produced by the Westerly Cream Company in the early 1900s. One of the most prolific was, of course, Consumers. That company has at least 55 different pyroglazed and embossed bottles.

Coming in second is Westerly Dairy, which was not located in Westerly, but rather in Pawcatuck. Like many businesses at the time, “Westerly” was used because of a post office proximity or a desire to be associated with a “big city.” This dairy produced at least 47 different bottle designs.

After that the list and the variety of bottles used by each dairy goes down to below 12. It is unknown whether this is from fewer years in business, frugalness or a small number of reuses. Milk bottles, one must remember, were returned to the dairy to be washed and reused until they were either chipped or too worn.

Homestead Dairy, a competitor of Consumers located on Canal Street, Westerly, produced at least 10 different milk bottles, including an amber square quart which was evidently not loved by many farmers or consumers. The color was supposed to protect the quality of the milk, but in the collecting world, they are scarce. Homestead was owned by Joseph Limanni and George Visgilio.

A few of the other notable Westerly dairies include: Watch Hill Dairy owned by Edwin Barber; William Miner; Panciera’s; Moorebrook; G. S. Moorhouse; Chas. E. Shippee; Cedar Farm Dairy; Langworthy Farm; Hillandale; Sunnyside; Harry Burton Dairy; J. V. Sharples; Avondale Farm; and Harry Crompton from Bradford.

A few others that identified as “Westerly” on their bottles or caps are John W. Wilkinson, North Stonington; Church Hill Dairy, Stonington; Stewart Farms, Stonington; Elm Ridge Dairy, North Stonington; City Dairy in North Stonington; and Birchwood Dairy, Stonington.

Outside Westerly, there was Maple Lawn Farms in Ashaway; Crandall Lea Farm in Ashaway; Frank L. Harris of Laurel Farm, Ashaway; George C. Kenyon of Hopkinton; Saddle Rock Dairy in Quonochontaug; C. M. Hall Dairy in Hope Valley; W. L. Fiddes in Hopkinton; Horseshoe Falls Dairy in Shannock; and Louis Conlon of Richmond.

While “buy local” and “grow local” are mantras today, it is unlikely that dairies in our area will ever return to their heyday.

David Smith, a former Sun reporter and editor, is a former president of the Westerly Historical Society. You can contact him at smith0983@verizon.net.