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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a show for those who can never know enough about history. I'm Gabe Lucier, and in this episode, we're talking about a revolutionary product that extended the shelf life of milk without the aid of preservatives. The day was September sixth, eighteen ninety nine. Carnation evaporated milk was produced for the first time in Kent, Washington. If you're unfamiliar with the product, it's essentially the same as regular fresh milk, but with about sixty percent less water. Most of the milk's water content is removed through heating, then what's left behind is homogenized, canned, and sterilized. This process makes evaporated milk shelf stable for months, if not years, and without affecting its nutritional content. And best of all, when it's mixed with water, it returns to the same taste and consistency as fresh milk. More or less. The product's versatility and longevity made it a popular alternative to fresh milk, especially in the early decades of the twentieth century, before home refrigeration became the norm. Today, Evaporated milk is mostly used as a cooking ingredient, popping up in both savory dishes and desserts, but in places and situations where refrigeration isn't an option, it still makes a great stand in for its more perishable cousin. The commercial process of evaporating milk was still relatively new in the late eighteen hundreds, and because sterilization methods were not yet well known, the best way to preserve the milk for distribution was by adding sugar. The resulting product was called condensed milk, and it was only available sweetened as a matter of necessity. That began to change in the eighteen eighties when Swiss dairyman Johann Meyenberg discovered a way to sterilize milk with high heat, eliminating the need to sweeten it. Meyenberg worked at a condensed milk plant in Switzerland, but his employer wasn't interested in his idea, so he immigrated to the United States and patented the process himself. Meyenberg eventually made his way to the dairy rich region of Washington State, where he teamed up with a pair of Seattle grocers named Elbridge Amos Stewart and Tom Yerksa. The pair had recently formed the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company with the goal of creating a safer milk product. The only problem was Stuart and Yerksa had no idea how to evaporate milk. For that crucial part of the business, they relied on the expertise of Johann Meyenberg, or, as he came to be nicknamed Cheese John. Before production was up and running, the trio ran the business out of an abandoned hotel in the city of Kent, but they were quickly able to upgrade after learning about another milk operation, the Washington Condensed Milk Company, that was about to go bankrupt. E A. Stewart later gave an account of those early days of the company, writing, quote, we located at a small plant at Kent, Washington, which had been established for the processing of sweetened condensed milk. The company had failed and the machinery and equipment were bought at sheriff's sale by the First National Bank of Helena, Montana. We purchased the equipment for the sum of five thousand dollars and rented the realty. We had to reassemble the machinery and make certain additions so as to adapt it to the processing of evaporated milk. While we were preparing the plant for operation, we employed a high class Swiss dairyman nicknamed cheese John, who worked with the local dairymen, educating them as to the method of producing a high quality fresh milk so that we could produce a high quality evaporated milk. On the sixth of September eighteen ninety nine, we received about fifty eight hundred pounds of fluid milk, which we processed into fifty five cases of evaporated milk. Sales were slow at first. Local customers didn't see the need to buy canned milk when fresh milk was available in abundance, even if it did have a higher risk of contamination. Still, Stuart and cheese John believed in their product, which at the time they were calling sterilized cream. Tom Yerkza wasn't as convinced and soon sold his half of the business to Stewart. Over the next few years, Stuart and Maienberg perfected the evapora ration process and improve their canning methods greatly, reducing spoilage. Little by little, people began to notice the advantages of canned milk. It was easier to transport and could be stored long term without refrigeration. The product was particularly popular with the hordes of prospectors who had flocked to the area during the Klondike Gold Rush. A safe, reliable source of milk was a luxury they never expected to have in the Yukon wilderness, and they snapped up cans of it so fast that Stuart had a hard time keeping up with the demand. Pretty soon, the company was producing ten thousand pounds of condensed milk every day, and by nineteen oh two production was up to forty thousand pounds per day. Sales of Pacific Coast sterilized cream continued to rise, but Stuart thought the product might do even better with a catchier name. He eventually hit on an idea for one. While walking along First Avenue in downtown on Seattle. Glancing into the window of a tobacco shop, he noticed a display for Carnation brand cigars. Stuart thought it was strange to name a cigar after a flour commonly associated with motherhood, but he thought it was a perfect fit for a milk product that was being built as safe and nutritious. Shortly after this epiphany, Stuart renamed his business the Carnation Evaporated Milk Company and began putting an illustration of the flour on all of the product labels. In the early years, the company had sourced all of its milk from local farmers. Mayanberg shared his best practices with them and routinely checked in to make sure everything was up to the company's strict standards. He recognized that high quality evaporated milk could only be made from high quality fresh milk, and he believed the key to that quality was to keep the cows as happy and comfortable as possible. Ea Stuart took that lesson to heart, and one a nineteen oh six marketing meeting, he described the humane treatment of carnation cows as one of the hallmarks of the company. A woman from the marketing firm reportedly responded to that comment saying, quote, they must be very contented cows. Stuart fell in love with that phrase, and the following year, the company introduced its first slogan, Carnation Condensed Milk, the milk from contented cows. In nineteen oh eight, Stewart doubled down on the happy Cow concept by buying three hundred and sixty acres of farmland in the snow Qualmie Valley and establishing his own breeding farm. He stocked it with prize winning Holstein cows and established a high standard of care for the herd. The goal of Carnation Farms was to increase the company's milk production, and Stuart firmly believed that cows who lived in a stress free environment would be able to produce more milk. To that end, he forbade rough treatment of the cows and even barred as employees from swearing in their presence. He also hung a sign in the main barn that laid out the basic guidelines for how the cows were to be treated. It remains there to this day, and it reads as follows. The rule to be observed in this stable at all times toward the cattle young and old is that of patience and kindness. Remember that this is the home of mothers. Treat each cow as a mother should be treated. Carnation cows were esteemed by breeders worldwide for their sweet temperaments and high milk yields, and many cows today are descended from the Carnation heard. As time went on, the company branched into other commercial products, including ice cream, baby formula, and a sweetened version of its condensed milk. The company also dabbled in animal feed, giving rise to several popular pet foods, including the Frihei's brand. The Stewart family continued to own and operate Carnation until nineteen eighty five, when they sold the brand to Nesley for roughly three billion dollars. As for Carnation Farms, the property has changed hands a few times over the years, but since twenty ten, the farm and the contented cows who lived there are back under the ownership of EA Stewart's descendants. I'm Gay Blues Gay, and hopefully you now know a little more about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep up with the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to send them my way by writing to this Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Kasby Bias for producing the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another Day in History Class.