Co-op Dairy Fire
by Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, October 25, 2019.
In 1963, most people in Exeter still called the Co-op Dairy the ‘Fremont Dairy.’ It’s a particular habit in New England to continue to use former names for things. The Fremont Dairy had been built in 1942, when milk prices had plummeted to levels that made local dairying unprofitable. The wartime OPA was encouraging local dairying. Coupled with the lack of labor due to the war, there was some concern that milk shortages might be a problem. Joe LeComte organized the Fremont Dairy and after its sale to Everett Glennie, a distribution center was built in Exeter on the corner of Brentwood Road and Washington Street. From there, milk would be delivered throughout the Exeter area – although during the war deliveries were made every other day to save on gas and tires. People were used to getting milk daily back then.
By the 1950s, the way we got our food had begun to change. Fewer things were delivered to the doorstep. Housewives were tired of the grind of going to the bakery, the butcher, the greengrocer and to meet the new consumer demands for convenience, supermarkets began to spring up, including a big one on Portsmouth Ave. Was there any reason these couldn’t include milk? The 1959 Exeter Chamber of Commerce booklet includes an ad from the Fremont Dairy. “You are cordially invited to inspect our plant at 14 Brentwood Road – Pasteurized Products, Homogenized Vitamin D Milk, Heavy and Light Cream, Chocolate and Butter Milk – Serving Exeter.” A thumb-sized grainy photo shows a garage-like structure with four milk trucks peeking out from the bays. In 1961, Everett and Irene Glennie sold the business to the New Hampshire Dairy Cooperative. The plant not only processed milk for the consumer, but also produced cottage cheese. Cottage cheese was popular as a meat substitute during both world wars. In the 1960s, it was used as a diet food for those wishing to slim their waistlines.
A few years ago, the Exeter Historical Society received an email from someone who had lived on Washington Street as a child asking, was it possible that there was a dairy on the corner? He thought he remembered a night when a dairy caught fire and embers lit up the sky. There was good reason for him to second guess his memory – there is no trace of the dairy on that spot today. It looks like a quiet residential street. But on the night of June 29th, 1963, just before midnight, the former Fremont Dairy burned completely in just under six hours.
The call went out at 11:50pm on a windless Saturday night. An employee of the plant, Thomas Binette, quickly moved the trucks away from the building. It would have been a quick fire to extinguish had it not rapidly spread to the second floor where there were estimated to be a quarter of a million wax-coated paperboard cottage cheese cartons stored. They lit up like birthday candles. Pieces of flaming paperboard soared upward, only to fall back to earth. The Exeter News-Letter commented, “Lack of wind prevented the maze of fiery embers from spreading to adjacent areas. After the roof collapsed a fog spray contained the blaze and the sparks seemed to fall back toward their point of origin.” To a small boy watching in the night, it must have seemed like a firework show.
Several problems hindered extinguishing the fire. Two of the Exeter fire trucks, the McCann trucks, broke down during the fire. Both were over 35 years old – older than the flaming building. Hampton and North Hampton fire departments were called to assist. But the issue that most irritated the fire chief was onlookers. “Toland’s only complaint about the fight…was that early-arriving spectators parked their vehicles indiscriminately. ‘This hindered us somewhat in our hose laying operation.’” The office records were rescued from the lower floor. “The safe had to be chopped out of its wall enclosure and was done at considerable risk by the firefighters.” The dairy’s secretary, Madeline Walker, later set up a temporary office from her home. No doubt this was helpful for the 2000 local customers in the following weeks.
Chief Toland would later rule the cause of the fire as “undetermined.” The building was well-insured but Milton Morris, the general manager decided against building on the same lot. “What we need now,” he told the News-Letter, “is about 2 ½ acres of land with a building for refrigeration and office space and a loading platform.” The New Hampshire Cooperative Dairy (or the old Fremont Dairy, as most people knew it) couldn’t find a new location in Exeter. It later set up shop in Haverhill. Local memory of the dairy’s 20-year presence on Brentwood Road vanished as quickly as a flaming ember.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org
Images: The photo of the Fremont Dairy from the Chamber of Commerce brochure, c. 1960, and the other is from the night of the fire.
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, October 25, 2019.
By the 1950s, the way we got our food had begun to change. Fewer things were delivered to the doorstep. Housewives were tired of the grind of going to the bakery, the butcher, the greengrocer and to meet the new consumer demands for convenience, supermarkets began to spring up, including a big one on Portsmouth Ave. Was there any reason these couldn’t include milk? The 1959 Exeter Chamber of Commerce booklet includes an ad from the Fremont Dairy. “You are cordially invited to inspect our plant at 14 Brentwood Road – Pasteurized Products, Homogenized Vitamin D Milk, Heavy and Light Cream, Chocolate and Butter Milk – Serving Exeter.” A thumb-sized grainy photo shows a garage-like structure with four milk trucks peeking out from the bays. In 1961, Everett and Irene Glennie sold the business to the New Hampshire Dairy Cooperative. The plant not only processed milk for the consumer, but also produced cottage cheese. Cottage cheese was popular as a meat substitute during both world wars. In the 1960s, it was used as a diet food for those wishing to slim their waistlines.
A few years ago, the Exeter Historical Society received an email from someone who had lived on Washington Street as a child asking, was it possible that there was a dairy on the corner? He thought he remembered a night when a dairy caught fire and embers lit up the sky. There was good reason for him to second guess his memory – there is no trace of the dairy on that spot today. It looks like a quiet residential street. But on the night of June 29th, 1963, just before midnight, the former Fremont Dairy burned completely in just under six hours.
The call went out at 11:50pm on a windless Saturday night. An employee of the plant, Thomas Binette, quickly moved the trucks away from the building. It would have been a quick fire to extinguish had it not rapidly spread to the second floor where there were estimated to be a quarter of a million wax-coated paperboard cottage cheese cartons stored. They lit up like birthday candles. Pieces of flaming paperboard soared upward, only to fall back to earth. The Exeter News-Letter commented, “Lack of wind prevented the maze of fiery embers from spreading to adjacent areas. After the roof collapsed a fog spray contained the blaze and the sparks seemed to fall back toward their point of origin.” To a small boy watching in the night, it must have seemed like a firework show.
Chief Toland would later rule the cause of the fire as “undetermined.” The building was well-insured but Milton Morris, the general manager decided against building on the same lot. “What we need now,” he told the News-Letter, “is about 2 ½ acres of land with a building for refrigeration and office space and a loading platform.” The New Hampshire Cooperative Dairy (or the old Fremont Dairy, as most people knew it) couldn’t find a new location in Exeter. It later set up shop in Haverhill. Local memory of the dairy’s 20-year presence on Brentwood Road vanished as quickly as a flaming ember.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org
Images: The photo of the Fremont Dairy from the Chamber of Commerce brochure, c. 1960, and the other is from the night of the fire.
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