Marketed as an ideal food, especially for children, large-scale production and distribution of milk ramped up around the same time that Mount Desert Island was enjoying the height of its Gilded Age in the 1880s. Increasing numbers of summer people, hotels, and restaurants meant increased food production to meet those needs. But raw milk was risky, possibly contaminated by a number of diseases. Although there was never a case of milk-borne disease documented on MDI, summer residents insisted on high standards and inspection of island dairies. Village Improvement Associations hired inspectors to ensure quality control, but summer people were often reluctant to pay the increased costs, until farmers took matters into their own hands, forming MDI Diaries, a dairy cooperative giving local farmers more control of their product. But market forces eventually won out, and island dairies are a thing of the past.

Learn more about this fascinating time in MDI history with Raney Bench, executive director for the MDI Historical Society, who will talk about local control from summer residents, and John Clark, dairy historian, whose family operated the last creamery on MDI, in Southwest Harbor. John will share his research into the heydays and collapse of MDI dairies. This program is offered in-person and online via Zoom and is a collaboration between the MDI Historical Society and the Southwest Harbor Public Library. It will be recorded for later viewing. Register Here

Raney Bench is the executive director for the Mount Desert Island Historical Society and author of several Chebacco articles. She lives in Southwest Harbor with her husband, son, and several furry friends. 

John Clark Jr. is a third-generation Clark to have worked in the dairy industry on Mount Desert Island. His father, Jack Clark Sr., and his grandfather, Owen (O. J.) Clark were in the business of either delivering or processing milk from 1939 until 1980. As a young boy, John rode along on milk deliveries with his father. In the summer of 1975, he delivered milk on a route using a Chevy Blazer "milk truck". 1975 was the twilight years for many small dairies in Maine, with his family’s dairy closed in 1980 after 41 years. John created the Downeast Milk Bottles website www.downeastmilkbottles.com to share the Maine milk bottles and memorabilia he and his father collected and to share the stories of other dairies on the Downeast coast.