Tag: Freeport L.I. milk dealer

Fred Beers, Inc., Ozone Park, L.I.

Census records show Fred Beers immigrating to the U.S. from Germany in 1906. In 1910 he was living on 118th Street in Manhattan and listed himself as the driver of a milk wagon. By 1920 he was living in the Bronx and simply called himself a milkman. In 1930, he was living in Brooklyn and was the proprietor of a milk company.

Fred Beers, Inc. maintained facilities in both Ozone Park, Queens and Freeport, Long Island and started sometime around 1930.

The first listing for Fred Beers, Inc. in Ozone Park that I can find is in the 1931 telephone directory at 101-11 100th Street, where it remained through 1953. In Freeport, the business was listed at 176 N Main Street in 1930 and 25 Bennington Avenue in 1939 where it remained through at least 1950. A 1938 advertisement in the Patchogue Advance listed both the Ozone Park and Freeport locations.

The December 2, 1940 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran a story that Beers was one of 16 firms participating in a city relief milk program:

Sixteen milk companies in Brooklyn and Queens have agreed, up to today, to participate in the city relief milk program by which children under 16 years of age will get a pint a day free. The plan is sponsored by Mayor LaGuardia and the United States Department of Agriculture.

In 1953 they moved the Queens location to 103-45 98th Street in Woodhaven. They remained there through at least the late 1960’s.

In the late 1940’s the name in the phone listings changes from Fred Beers, Inc. to Beers, Inc. That’s an indication that Fred Beers may have left and/or sold the business around this time. Based on census records he would have been in his 60’s by that time so it makes sense.

The 101-11 100th St location is a two story commercial building that could certainly date back to the business.The Bennington Avenue location is an open yard directly adjacent to the LIRR tracks. It looks like it could be one of the railroad’s construction staging areas.

The bottle I found is a machine made quart embossed Fred Beers Inc. Ozone Park, L.I. This would date it between the business start-up in the early 1930’s and the name change in the late 1940’s.

Amityville Creamery, Inc./Evans-Amityville, Amityville L. I.

amityville-evans

It’s not clear when the Amityville Creamery came into business but there are references to them in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that date back to 1924 and they are listed on an aerial map/poster promoting Amityville published in 1925 by the Metropolitan Aerial View Co. Their pitch on the poster was: “Best milk and cream on Long Island”

According to the “Post Card History Series – Amityville’ by Karen Mormando Klein, The Amityville Creamery was located on Wellington Place and Railroad Avenue near Hartman’s Lake in Amityville. (A later newspaper article lists the address as 47 Wellington Place.) Their motto was: “If you don’t buy from us we both lose money.”

amityville-creamery-ad

At least for a time, the business also maintained facilities in Freeport Long Island. The 1926 Freeport Directory lists them at two locations, 176 N Main and 37 S Grove. By 1930, the business is not listed in the Freeport Directory and another milk business, Fred Beers, Inc. is located at 176 N Main.

At some point, the company merged with Evans Dairy of Rockville Centre becoming the Evans-Amityville Dairy. I’ve found an Amityville Creamery bottle with a 1939 Owens-Illinois Glass code and an Evans-Amityville bottle with a 1946 Owens-Illinois Glass code leading me to believe that the merger occurred sometime between 1939 and 1946; probably in the early 1940’s.

According to various newspaper references the business also operated a distribution plant in Rockville Centre in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. The plant caught fire and burned to the ground on February 12, 1954.

The Evans-Amityville Dairy was one of a group of corporations whose stock was closely held by the Evans family. These corporations dealt with all phases of milk production and sales with Evans-Amityville focused on processing and distributing. They apparently grew significantly between the 1940’s and 1960’s as evidenced by an article in the March 3, 1960 issue of the Patchogue Advance. The article stated:

Willet H Evans, President of Evans Dairy Inc. of Amityville announced this week the acquisition of the former Stills Dairy of Medford. The ever-expanding dairy – termed the largest on Long Island – serves homes, hospitals, schools and stores from the Queens border to Montauk Point. The trade name was recently changed (from Evans-Amityville Dairy to Evans Dairy).

They continued to use the Wellington Place address for most (at least through 1957) if not all of their history.

The end of the business apparently came quickly. A 1971 federal indictment charged that in the mid-1960’s Joseph P Fingst, at the time a Supreme Court Justice in NY, conspired with others to take control of the W M Evans Dairy Co. and the Evans-Amityville Dairy, Inc. The indictment went on to allege that the defendants sold off the dairy’s assets and pocketed the cash before causing the dairy to file for bankruptcy.

The Wellington Avenue site is now occupied by a series of condominiums and Hartman Lake has been renamed Petchkin Park.

I found two small half-pint bottles embossed Amityville Creamery Inc with the 1939 Owens-Illinois Glass code. They are also embossed with the patent no 1,650,440 and date of Nov 22, 1927. This patent applied for by Edward F Glacken related to the specific type of finish (that included embossed indentations) on the bottle. I also found two quart size Evans-Amityville bottles with Owens-Illinois Glass codes of 1946 and 1954. The 1954 bottle has a cream top.