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When we envision Texas, images of cattle herds grazing peaceably come fairly quickly into view. But why have Texans preferred to eat rather than milk these often attractive and obliging animals?   The overeating of beef has been a source of Type Two Diabetes, coronary heart disease, colorectal cancer and strokes.  But dairy is an amazing food and a superior source of energy. It increases the longevity of our life, helps mothers provide good milk of their own for their children, has powerful enzymes, helps bone strength in older people, fights osteoporosis, and can have many probiotic properties. Breast-fed babies, receiving milk from milk-fed mothers have a better body frame and chances for an overall healthier life. The best dairy also is indescribably delicious. It is true that we can have too much, but is it not amazing how the body craves it even when full?  We need what it has: One glass of milk has as much Vitamin A and D, as well as the B-class vitamins than five oranges or a serving of broccoli.  

With all of its assets, modern Texas has within it an implicit dream that it could become the preeminent dairy state, even challenging the countries of Western Europe for world superiority.  Texas’ libertarian tradition, and lack of an income tax encourages innovation, and dairy novelties that can become alluring. Texas has a longer growing season than most of its competitors and plenty of land to raise hay and grains, for added nutrients. Though it is true that droughts can hamper this advantage, many Texas growers have found how lucrative it is to use drought-stressed sorghum, or drought-stressed corn for silage.  This practice uses less water in sum since these grains can be grated and processed before reaching full development.  Iowa can grow full corn for humans, but Texas has incentives to specialize in silage, which cows prefer in any case, and which can yield rich results in the dairy business.  Texas also is known to be a big animal state, and has capable cowboys, knowledgeable ranchers, and enough rural veterinarians to keep the cows healthy.   Texas has 40 percent of the goats in the nation.  They not only have promising cheeses, but could become premium producers of kefir, a fermented milk drink loaded with probiotics that could challenge yogurt as the premier dairy product in the years to come. Finally, Texas has a great home market, and a natural yearning, almost year-round, for ice cream.   

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In 1859, The traveler, Frederick Law Olmstead alluded to reasons why Texas was unable to convert its early advantages into a dairy bonanza.  His book noted that cotton produced such dividends, and the purchase of slaves seemed so urgent to win those dividends, that early Texans had little time for gardens or dairy.  Texans got off to a bad start.  In fact, the whole first century of dairy production, from 1836 to 1941, can be characterized as an Era of Obliviousness. Before the 1880s, families might have a dairy cow or two, but production was minimal, and there was little sharing of information.  In the early years of Texas, most of the cows were from Spanish origins, and some of these breeds, while hearty, were known as “exceedingly poor milkers.” Frontier newcomers could not always recognize the bad grasses that could cause a cow to transmit a fatal bout with “milk disease.” Milking big animals deterred some.  At least one farm matron received a horn in her abdomen for her efforts to provide fresh milk.   

The advantages of dairy, however, impelled some serious free-lance efforts. Gail Borden, a most notable pioneer of the American dairy business from New York, settled in Galveston in 1829.  He exercised many of his talents as a publisher and surveyor, and became interested in food experiments. Together with Ashbel Smith, the “father of the University of Texas,” he started a food business, and was very interested in marketable meat and milk products.  However, the better conditions of dairy at that time in the north took this promising Texan dairyman to New York in 1851, where he observed some secrets of local Shakers, and eventually created condensed milk.  Ironically, for Texas, the ability of a northern state to convert on the processing of condensed milk, using Borden’s process and the New York Hudson River cows as a base, helped the Union win the Civil War.  Cans of condensed milk produced by the thousands in New York gave Union troops the protein they needed to persevere with the war effort.  Texas’ lackluster dairy initiatives in the early days, helped bequeath one of the greatest names in American dairy history to the fame of another region.  Borden did eventually move back to Texas, and he did establish a condensed milk plant in Bordenville in 1872. However, most of the canned milk that was sold in Texas during the nineteenth century was produced and processed in the northern states. 

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New York was the state to watch for dairy before the Civil War, and it grabbed the number-one spot in dairy production from 1850-1875. Dairy history teaches that special niche products can win a state a great dairy reputation, and this became true for New York due to the fame of products such as Herkimer County Cheese, and Goshen Butter.  With the Herkimer Cheese especially, Consumers recognized a tasty, great source of protein and vitamins, and a product that could survive on its own in cooler temperatures.  This success led to the first United States Cheese exchange, hosted in Little Falls in 1850s. This exchange helped set the price of cheese for the country and had even influenced the cheese prices in Europe.

New York with its Borden and Herkimer products became smug with success.  However, after the Civil War, Wisconsin proved that a non-dairy state can pivot quickly to top production in dairy.  Wisconsin during the American Civil War was known as a “breadbasket state” because of its wheat production.  But then the chinch bug after the Civil War began to deplete the crop.  Wisconsin had a Governor, William Dempster Hoard, who recognized wheat’s shortcomings, and became a vigorous advocate for dairy.  Texas had a large German community and links to cheese production in Europe, but Hoard’s crusading helped Wisconsin to awaken to its advantage first.  Wisconsin, found their niche when discovering how to make Swiss cheese.  Soon Wisconsin alone had produced around 1 billion pounds of new milk and had an estimated herd of 15,000 cows. 

During the Age of Obliviousness, Texas’ dairy business grew, but the state had so many problems with its cows, that the outlook was not promising.  To be sure, creameries were established in many of the North Texas areas, including Greenville, Alvardo, Terrell, and Weatherford, in the 1880s. The primary purpose of the creameries was to produce products such as butter, margarine, cheese, and more. Still the industry languished.  In 1876 a wire salesman by the name of John Gates demonstrated the potential to many of the cattlemen of barbed wire.  Cattle could now cheaply stay on the land meant for them.  It seemed like a great idea.  But then, a series of blizzards wracked western counties in the late 1880s.   Ranchers had penned their cattle with barbed wire, which often left them unable to hide from the cold by migrating south, or finding ravines or caves.  The cows unlike the buffalo could not abide with the terrific wind chills of these artic invasions. Perhaps 85% of the cattle from West Texas perished in the “Great Cattle Die Up.” 

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Another cow problem of the late-nineteenth century was the “Texas Fever.”  Since the Spanish under Miguel Aguayo had introduced large numbers of cows in the early eighteenth century, Texas cattle had become relatively immune from deadly pathogens that resided in the ticks. But when Texas cattle journeyed to other states, their ticks, loaded with these lethal microbes attached themselves to northern cattle.  The result, 90 percent of the time, was death.  Though the disease, also known as babesiosis was a worldwide issue, northerners in the United States so associated the disease with Texas cattle, that it became known as “Texas fever.”  This was bad for Texas’ dairy potential in three respects. First the idea of wholesome Texas milk during this age was quite repugnant to the rest of the nation, which associated Texas cattle with a terrifying disease.  Second, when Texas cattlemen imported dairy breeds from elsewhere, they often died of babesiosis, destroying the possibilities for a diverse dairy industry.  Finally, when Texas authorities tried to solve the problem by having Texas cows bathe periodically in poisonous dipping vats, to kill the ticks, it added to the burden of maintaining dairy cows, and also appeared to have discouraged mother cows from giving milk.   

With the “Die Up” and Texas Fever, it would have appeared ridiculous to contemplate a serious future for dairy in Texas.  But despite all the obstacles, Texas’ great potential and assets led to increases, and by the early 1900s, a foundational culture for possible future progress.  By the early 1900s, twelve creameries were in full operation in Texas.   Diseases and the die-up did not prevent Texas during these years from cultivating the kinds of cows that could make the state a great center for dairy.  In the aftermath of the “Die- Up, there was a call for the Ayrshire breed to come to Texas. This Scottish cow was tough and could weather storms better than other breeds, and live with less forage. Still, Ayrshires though beautiful animals with a coat ranging from mahogany to titian, were susceptible to the Texas Fever.  One cow that was not so susceptible, and could be easily imported from other states was the Jersey. This breed, gentler, and more tan in color than the Ayrshire, was known to produce a higher butterfat milk content.  Through most of the state’s history, Jerseys were the most numerous of Texas’ dairy cows.  Finally, in 1884, the first Holstein calves were birthed in Texas. This cow, now famous for its encouragement of Chick-Fil-A chicken, came with German and Dutch dairymen. It was called initially the Holstein- Frisian as they originated in Friesland, an area now straddling the northern Netherlands, and the northwest coastal area of Germany. This specific breed was prized for yielding very large quantities of good milk. In the early twentieth century, a good Holstein probably could have yielded a life-changing six gallons of milk per day; in the twenty-first century this figure is up to an amazing nine gallons.  Still, imagine the nutritional value of six gallons per cow per day, as opposed to sending the animal to the slaughterhouse. Holsteins, to be sure, depleted forage rapidly, and were not as appropriate for western dairymen as the Ayrshires.  Milking these beasts was time-consuming and sometimes, dangerous.  Still it must have been thrilling for many Texans to have seen the Holsteins flourishing on East Texas pastures in the early years of the twentieth century.

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Texans remained oblivious to their great potential to surpass Wisconsin or New York in the early years of the twentieth century.   Refrigerated train cars were by 1900 able to transport milk all over the country, and this was particularly significant in Texas with its hotter temperatures.  Still, Texans seemed nonplused. No one in the state championed the possibilities as William Hoard had done for Wisconsin.  In fact, rather than embellish its libertarian tradition, Texans still aware of their bad Texas-fever reputation, bent over backwards to over-regulate, and show their milk to be OK for consumption.  Today perhaps 10 percent or more of Americans are lactose intolerant. This is because the lactase, an enzyme which breaks down lactose, is absent from the milk.  It is absent because the natural enzyme of lactase found in raw milk was denatured by pasteurization. The American call and method of Pasteurization, which swept the nation in the early twentieth century as a cure-all for bad milk, also came to Texas.  Texans meekly complied even though heating the milk to a high temperature takes dairy’s best properties away. This is not to say that bad milk like mycotoxin buildup in old apples, and spoiled meat is indeed dangerous.   It is to say that the American style of Pasteurization was not the only alternative, and Texas could have played a role in creating a better solution to bad milk, either by tracking superior raw milk, or by adopting the less-drastic European style of Pasteurization. All Texas had adopted compulsory Pasteurization—the American way--by 1927.  

The dairy business goes up and down with each new fad.  But wars show how vital dairy is.  Rome could not have had its empire without cheese.  It could be transported for long distances to feed its armies without refrigeration.  Similarly Borden, as noted above, had an impact in the Civil War, enabling the North to transport condensed milk, and keep its isolated soldiers fighting.  With the years of World War II, a new phase of Texas’ dairy history emerged.   When a nation fights a war, many need real food that provides the correct proteins and fats needed to power the body. During World War Two, 1941-1945, the number of dairy cows in Texas skyrocketed from 1 million to 1.5 million. The Department of Agriculture had hoped that because of the war, the state could raise its milk yield by 6% or 8%. But Texas provided an increase of over 40 percent! Texas creameries poured out butter, cheese, and milk as never before.

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The 1950s was also a promising time.  Americans felt impelled to drink milk, new Texas cheeses were launched, and many Texas dairies prospered.   During this decade, Texas dairies perfected refrigeration.  Some even had their own distinctive glass bottles, and their brand was clearly identified. One could get beautifully shaped milk bottles from the J.H Rucher dairy in Abilene, or bottles of a slightly different shape from the Dollins Dairy of Waco.  Milkmen came right to one’s door, and left the bottles, picking them up empty with the next delivery, cleaning and reusing.  Such tracking of dairies could have provided a way around the drastic mode of American Pasteurization, building up trust between consumers and suppliers.

During this more hopeful, post-1940 era, a particular Texas dairy began to sense the possibilities.  The Kruse family were Germans, from a German town of Brenham, Texas. In 1907, dairymen in their town had begun a normal creamery operation, selling limited amounts of butter and ice cream with modest results.  In 1919, E. F. Kruse took over, and he helped make it a successful though still local business through the 1950s.  In the 1960s and 1970s, however, the company, now under the control of his sons, invested totally in ice cream, and began to embellish their new name, Blue Bell, named after the famous Texas wildflower.  This idea, and the delicious ice cream caught on.   Greg Heinz of Mount Pleasant tells the story of how in the 1970s, one of the things one did after driving two hours to Dallas, was to pick up some Blue Bell Ice Cream to take home. Blue Bell continued to expand all over the state, and in 1989 began to expand into Oklahoma.  Finally, a Texas dairy export was attracting attention.  As Swiss Cheese served Wisconsin in the late-nineteenth century, Blue Bell now served Texas.   

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Texas thus entered a new dairy era in 1989 when it was finally acknowledged as a dairy state.  By the early twenty-first century, the area around Brenham alone included some 30,000 milk cows, with their cream being made into ice cream on a daily basis.  The company now maintained 250 frozen dairy products, and 66 different kinds of ice cream.  It was the number two ice cream company in the United States, and according to Forbes Magazine in 2001, the top ice cream in quality per dollar.  In 2006 a reviewer from the New York Times sampled Blue Bell and noted:

[w]ith clean, vibrant flavors and a rich, luxuriant consistency achieved despite a butterfat content a little lower than some competitors, it hooks you from the first spoonful. Entirely and blessedly absent are the cloying sweetness, chalky texture, and oily, gummy aftertaste that afflict many mass-manufactured ice creams."

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Texas has proved itself. Texas is still about fifth in the United States in terms of yield quantity.  But the mega-dairies of California and Idaho, like the big beer companies are becoming a thing of the past, or at least, are devoid of promised improvement or glamor.  With the state’s new allowance for raw milk, a burgeoning artisanal cheese production, and interests in niche yogurts, and kefir, a new spirit has begun to assert itself.  Again, unlike competitors, Texas cows typically graze outside year-round on grass rather than live in unhealthy barns, huddling together, eating hay.  As cheese taste often comes down to grass quality, this gives Texas cheese a special advantage. When one adds to this that goat and sheep cheeses are also developing popular niche markets, and that Texas leads all other states in possessing such animals, Texas’ future with dairy is bright indeed.