Dairy Building Design

Designed as a Swiss Chalet, the 150' x 60' Dairy Building was located across a canal and to the east of the Agriculture Building. Its exterior was staff and exposed wood. Standing two stories, the building was surrounded on three sides by a balcony. The upper floor housed a restaurant, one of two on the Exposition grounds to serve $.50 dinners. The lower floor was dedicated to exhibits of butter and cheeses from 17 states and Canada, as well as displays of dairy-related equipment such as cream separators.

Refrigeration was extensively used in this building to maintain the appropriate temperature to preserve butter (40 degrees) and cheese (50 degrees). A glass refrigerator 8 feet high and 20 feet wide extended the length of the first floor to house the dairy products. Some of the cheeses were curing, some were simply preserved, and the butter samples were classified as "extra fine." Immediately inside the entrance to the first floor was a glass refrigerator reputed to be the largest ever built which housed the "Capitol of Minnesota," a sculpture of butter weighing almost 1400 pounds.

The equipment included a working exhibit of the complete process of manufacturing condensed milk, installed by the C.T. Rogers & Sons company of Detroit.

Exhibitors included Brunswick Refrigerating Co (New Brunswick, NJ), De Laval Separator (Cortlandt Street, NY, NY), Iron Clad Mfg Co (NY, NY), P.M. Sharples (West Chester, Pa), Star Milk Cooler (Haddonfield, NJ), Vermont Farm Machine Co (Bellows, Vt).

W.A. Hall, Assistant Superintendent, was responsible for this building, which was part of the Exposition Agriculture exhibit.

A related exhibit, the Model Dairy was located nearby.