| Additional Information: | See also AHI #7409 (Dormitory for farm workers) and AHI #7410 (Milk bottling plant)
Resurveyed 2021 by HRL (Vogel): NOTE bibliographic references (above) from which the following information came:
Arriving in Genesee in 1908 was Robert G. Morey who, along with the dairying operations of P.L. Williams, Howard T. Green (Brook Hill Farm) and Owen Rowlands (Keystone Farm), became a well-recognized milk producer. Morey was born in LaGrange (IL) in 1874 and, as an adult, worked in milk sales for the Marshall Field Wholesale Company. He also sold insurance for Northwestern Mutual Life.
Morey immediately started developing his Pleasant Valley Farm upon arrival. He was an early proponent of sanitary and scientific farming whose operation grew to include 1,400 acres as well as a herd of Guernsey, Holstein and Ayrshire cows. His milk was hauled by three horse hitches to the train station in Genesee Depot where it started its trip to major markets that included New York and Chicago. Indeed, Morey was reported to have supplied up to 30% of the certified milk sold in the latter, sales that were valued at almost $1,000 per day. Certified milk was produced through a process where it was “…taken from the cow and presented to the consumer without having been touched by [a] human hand.” Morey’s farm included by 1917 a “model certified milk plant…a showplace for scientific men and practical health officials from all over the United States.”
A prolific businessman was Morey. He was awarded one year a Gold Medal at the National Dairy Show for his certified milk. He also expanded his operation beyond the Pleasant Valley Farm to include the acquisition of a creamery in Genesee, the construction of a creamery in Stoughton and the building in 1918 of a condensery in North Prairie. Products expanded to include evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk and powdered milk. At one time Morey owned all land along STH 59 between Genesee and North Prairie, in part to help house his workers. Morey’s business interests grew by 1920 to give him an inter-national reputation and make him “the largest individual milk operator in the world.” He had milk intake plants in the communities of Palmyra, Eagle and Dousman, among others. At one point 800 farmers with 16,000 cows supplied the North Prairie Condensery.
Apart from his farm and its nearby facilities, Morey established in 1917 the Wisconsin Dairy Products Company of which he was president. Officers and managers were from Armour & Company and Borden & Company. It was to be “a great milk production and distribution company….” Morey subsequently sold his interest to Armour a year or two later in order to focus on his Pleasant Valley Farm and the North Prairie Condensery.
Walks along STH 59 were part of Morey’s daily routine. He was hit by a car on the evening of 15 November 1932 and died shortly thereafter at a Waukesha hospital. The farm was having some financial difficulty, though it is presently unclear if troubles began before or after Morey’s death. It is known that, at some point, Charles Nelson, Sr., operated the farm for seven years on behalf of its creditors. It is also known that Pleasant Valley Farm was the site of a prisoner of war camp during World War II, a camp that disbanded in mid-January 1946. By the 1970s the property was operated by an industrial, egg-producer.
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| Bibliographic References: | “3 Fatally Injured in Road Accidents.” The (Appleton, WI) Post-Crescent, 16 November 1932, 1.
“Chas. Nelson, Sr. Funeral Tuesday.” Waukesha Daily Freeman (Waukesha, WI), 11 April 1945, 2.
DeCabooter, Ruth. “Genesee Depot.” Waukesha Daily Freeman (Waukesha, WI), 14 January 1946, 9.
Haight, Frank Putney. “R.G. Morey Rides the Crest of the Milk Wave in the Northwest.” Waukesha Daily Freemen (Waukesha, WI), 03 May 1917, 23.
Kabitzke, Don. “North Prairie Condensery and Robert Gideon Morey. Landmark: A Publication of the Waukesha County Historical Society, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Autumn, 1978): 5-8.
Kabitzke, Don. “The North Prairie Condensery, Part II.” Landmark: A Publication of the Waukesha County Historical Society, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter, 1978-9): 15-18.
“New Issue.” Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI), 01 June 1920, 6.
Perkins, Martin C. “The History of Agriculture in Waukesha County (1834-1983). In From Farmland to Freeways: A History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, ed. Ellen D. Langhill and Jean Penn Loerke, 175-218. Waukesha, WI: Waukesha County Historical Society, Inc., 1984.
“R.G. Morey Killed.” The Capitol Times (Madison, WI), 19 November 1932, 8.
Ridgeway, Frank. “Two-Cow Dairy of 34 Years Ago Now Waukesha’s Pride.” Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL), 15 October 1922, pt. 2, pg. 16.
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