Got Milk? When The Answer Was Always YES.

It may be hard for younger people to fathom why there ever was a time that milk and other dairy products were actually delivered right to your door, by a cheerful deliveryman—often wearing a uniform.

In fact, milk delivery was an old tradition that goes back to the days that local dairy farmers delivered their products locally by horse-drawn wagons. Deliveries were usually frequent and regular, since there was no way to keep the milk cold in storage for long. Later, when iceboxes became more common in homes, dairy farmers continued to deliver their products, along with the ice man and the coal truck.

Here in Akron, we had local dairies like Akron Pure Milk Company, Kesselring and Reiter & Harter—not to mention branches of larger dairies like Borden and Sealtest. Their handsome trucks plied through our neighborhoods, dropping milk and other dairy goods off to homes, usually depositing the glass jugs inside insulated aluminum boxes at the back door. Some people even had a special storage box built into their homes, with an access door in the outside for the milkman and another door on the inside so the homeowner could retrieve their milk.

Just leave the milk in this box. On the back porch.

Convenience was a factor, for sure; but milk and eggs were available at the grocery. So why have them delivered?

Well, you have to remember that in the pre-suburban age, most American neighborhoods were walkable, and most every neighborhood had one more or more grocery stores. In addition, it was not uncommon for women born before or during The Depression to have never learned how to drive. My mother was born in 1921; she and a few of her sisters never had a drivers license—it wasn’t that unusual.

That usually meant walking to the store, maybe with one or more children in tow. That also meant more frequent trips, rather than the weekend “load up” that’s so common in our own time.

Here’s the reality: Eggs are fragile. Glass bottles of milk are breakable. And more importantly—VERY HEAVY. Better not to lug that stuff home – just have the milkman drop it off every few days.

That's what I'm talkin' about. Milk. PURE milk from real COWS- none of this Almond-milk crap.

Even in 1962, well after Americans had started making the move to the suburbs, the Department of Agriculture reported that almost one third of homes were still having milk delivered. By 1975, that number had dropped below 7%. As time went on, almost everyone drove a car, and some families had more than one. Weekly expeditions to the local supermarket became the norm. Dairies found it hard to justify the extra cost of home delivery, and most consumers just didn’t require it anymore.

At the home where I grew up, the Reiter & Harter All Star Dairy delivery man showed up at least a couple of times a week, in his yellow truck, dropping off glass half-gallon jugs of whole milk and sometimes fruit juice, too.



What red blooded American kid wouldn't want his own toy milk truck?

This went on up until the late 1960’s. I’m not sure if we cancelled delivery, or if the dairy just ended the service on their own.

It didn’t matter. By that time, I was supposedly “diagnosed” as being somewhat allergic to cow’s milk, so I had to hike down to the Acme at Six Corners once a week to retrieve the two quarts of goat’s milk they kept on order in the back cooler for me. As a kid, it was kinda neat, being able to go in the back of the store, open the big walk-in storage cooler and retrieve MY milk.

I can still remember sauntering up to the check-out counter, with an air of self-satisfaction:

Yes. I see you looking, there. You’re probably thinking – “where did you get that goat’s milk?” I got it in the back of the store. They keep it special. Just for me—in these colorful little quart cartons. It’s delicious. It tastes a lot better than your common cow’s milk, too…

After a few years of this, my mother decided that the novelty had worn off and that I could survive (like the rest of our family) on 2% regular milk, which is what I have been drinking for the last 40+ years.

Akron. Pure. Milk. Delivered right to your door. Sounds pretty good to me.

Of course, with today’s focus on locally-sourced food, I have to wonder how long before we might see local milk delivery again. I mean, we make honey in Akron, and croissants, and hot sauce, and all kinds of tasty stuff. Today, timely delivery of just about anything you want is a phone app away. In some places, regular milk delivery is already a thing again.

But while I’d trust a drone to deliver a bag of Cheetos, I’m not so sure I want one toting heavy jugs of milk over my house.

Give me the guy in the uniform.

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Built for Speed: The Arfons Brothers

Walt (left) and Art (right) Arfons.

It figures. Only a guy from Akron would have the ‘nads to strap a jet engine onto four wheels and go racing. But in this case, there were two guys, Art Arfons and his half-brother, Walt.

Their father, a Greek immigrant, came to America at the age of 14 and settled in Akron, where he operated a feed mill. The brothers’ natural ingenuity and mechanical skills found an outlet in working on cars, and though Walt was ten years older than Art, they forged a common bond in their desire to go fast.

One of the Arfons Brothers' first Green Monster Drag Racers

In 1952, they built their first dragster, a three-wheeler with an Olds 6-cylinder engine, pained a hideous green shade that matched their old Oliver farm tractor. Dubbed “The Green Monster” by the track PA announcer, the name stuck for all of the brothers’ joint projects.

Using surplus aircraft piston engines at first, the brothers raced throughout the 1950’s. They were the first drag racers to hit 150 mph in a quarter mile, and continued to do so using subsequent versions of The Green Monster.

Around 1960, the brothers parted amicably and followed their separate paths, although they continued to compete with each other on a friendly basis. Art headed to Bonneville with an Allison aircraft engine powered car that hit over 313 mph in 1961.

Being no slouch, brother Walt became the first to introduce a jet-engine dragster in 1960, utilizing a parachute to slow the car down at the end of the run. In 1967, Chrysler Corporation gave Walt a Dodge Dart, Plymouth Barracuda and Dodge Charger to convert into dragsters. Walt simply strapped jet engines onto all three stock cars and went racing.

Need more speed? Just find a jet engine and strap it to the back of the family car.

During the 1960’s, both brothers returned to the Bonneville salt flats many times with new and innovative jet-powered cars they designed. During 1964 they went back-and-forth against record-holder Craig Breedlove and his Spirit of America, Art in a new Green Monster and Walt in the Wingfoot Express. Hitting record speeds of over 400mph (Walt) and 500mph (Art) the brothers battled across the salt flats with all comers for speed record supremacy.

Art Arfons with his 1966 edition of The Green Monster.

In later years, the brothers drove less and spent their time mostly designing cars, with Art enjoying great success in jet turbine powered tractor pulling competitions, and being named to the Motor Sports Hall of Fame in 1991. Art passed in 2007, and older brother Walt passed in 2013. Today, you can still see their Green Monster sign out on Pickle Road, north of Killian.

A little bit crazy? Maybe. What we can say for sure is that when it comes to “life in the fast lane” — no one showed the way better than the two brothers from Akron.

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The Story Behind This Web Site...

Little Big Town originated with a 2015 Medium post I wrote that outlined how our city’s landscape had changed so much over the past 150 years, and how the rapid expansion of the city—due to a series of “boom” periods—had caused it to be significantly transformed several times over.

The notion of Little Big Town also got its inspiration from Akron’s foremost historian, Dave Leiberth, who has referred to our city many times as “America’s Biggest Small Town” - as well as University of Akron professor George Knepper, who has often noted that “Akron has many accomplishments disproportionate to its size as a city.”

I would also be remiss if I did not give some credit to the creators of the great NYC history blog, The Bowery Boys, who have provided a lot of inspiration, if not the model, for how to produce and sustain an engaging and entertaining city history blog.

One of my favorite pastimes on Twitter has been digging up old images of Akron, posting them as a “PastBlast”—not only in an effort to inspire fond memories in older generations of Akronites—but also to inspire younger generations and make them understand that almost anything is possible here in our city. Rather than sending a message about “how great it used to be”, the goal is to show how creativity, hard work, smarts, and that peculiar Akron World View made our city such a special place. Today, I see many of the same skills are being put to work by a younger generation right now to shape Akron for an exciting and unpredictable future.

So many of the young people I come across see these historic images and hear these Akron stories, and the reaction is typically something along the lines of:

“What a great idea that was. Let’s do it again—but better.”

“Those people were a little bit crazy. Just like us.”

“Who would have thought you could do that here? But they did. So can we.”

“Some of those great ideas we hear about today? They were doing that in Akron 100 years ago.”

“They didn’t have much to start with. Neither do we. But look where they finished.”

While the city limits here may not stretch as far and wide as they do in America’s great metropolises, one thing people from Akron have proved again and again is that there is no limit to our imaginations—or our creativity. Perhaps somewhere in this collection—in this colorful Akron memory book—a new generation will find a spark of inspiration to create their own unique and remarkable history in this overgrown small town.

If you have any ideas or suggestions for stories, feel free to pass them along.

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