Dairies Milk bottle caps, Historic Saranac Lake Collection, 2009.

Large quantities of milk were prescribed for T.B. patients. Milk bottles and bottle caps document some of the many dairies established in the Saranac Lake area to provide it.

There were small farms all over the area in the 1900s, many of them surviving into the 1940s and 50s. Many small farmers sold their milk in bulk, usually in forty-quart cans that they delivered to larger farms where milk was bottled and sold retail. Farms active in the area included:

Lake Placid News, June 30, 1922

The Board of Health ran tuberculin tests on the cows, to certify that they were free of tuberculosis, and checked milk deliveries for sanitary practices. Among the names appearing in their records as milk delivery men are Theo Clark, Wm. Betters, B. Cameron, Joe Branch, Hugh Morgan, John Henry Morgan, Gowett Brothers and John Tierney. In January 1923, an entry in the Board of Health book had this to say: "All herds furnishing grade A milk and cream in the Village tuberculin tested and free from tuberculosis, in compliance with the law."

Herds tested included:

  • in Bloomingdale: Fred VanCour, 12 cows; W.J. Johnson, 30 cows; William Williams, 11 cows; Sewell Wardner, 10 cows; Frank Norman, 12 cows; Francis O'Neil, 10 cows
  • in Saranac Lake: A.H. McKillip, 26 cows; Joe VanCour, 19 cows; William McKillip, 23 cows; Martin Donnelly, 38 cows; John McDonald, 29 cows; Fred Dukett, 9 cows; Ben Durgan, 38 cows; M. Cardinal, 20 cows
  • in Gabriels, Doug Martin, 12 cows.

Sources:

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