Milk Bottles & Dairies of Thunder Bay & Area 1906-2003
$24.95
From glass bottle to milk bag, from horse-drawn wagon to refrigerated truck—this is the story of milk in Thunder Bay.
Spanning nearly a century, this richly illustrated book chronicles the dairies of Thunder Bay and surrounding communities, capturing the people, places, and objects that defined a local industry. With detailed histories of over 70 dairies and a collector’s rarity guide, Milk Bottles and Dairies of Thunder Bay and Area is a must-have for history enthusiasts, collectors, and anyone with a love of heritage and hometown stories.
Description
Milk Bottles and Dairies of Thunder Bay and Area (1906–2003) is a definitive history of the region’s dairying industry, told through the lens of milk bottle collecting and local enterprise. Drawing on archival sources, collector expertise, and community memory, the book chronicles over 70 dairies from Thunder Bay, Nipigon, Beardmore, and Geraldton, capturing their rise, operation, and eventual decline. From embossed glass bottles and silk-screened designs to the advent of cardboard cartons and metric conversion, the book offers a rich account of how milk delivery shaped—and was shaped by—technological innovation, public health regulation, and community need.
This is more than just a collector’s guide—it is a deeply researched social history of an industry vital to Northwestern Ontario’s development. Each dairy entry includes historical notes, bottle rarity guides, and lists of associated collectibles like milk caps, tokens, and calendars. Maclean and Pettit combine rigorous documentation with a passion for local heritage, preserving stories that might otherwise be lost. Their work reveals the resilience and ingenuity of small-scale dairies, many of which were family-run and closely tied to the region’s immigrant and settler communities.
