Information Sheet

 

 

R         Bolivar Creamery Company.

411                  Record book, 1889‑1892.

                                    One folder, photocopies.

 

 

 

This collection includes the articles of association, certificate of incorporation, and min­utes of meetings of directors and stockholders of the Bolivar Creamery Company in Bolivar, Polk County, Missouri, 1889-1891.  Also included are records of a subsequent firm, the Bolivar Milk Com­pany, organized in 1892.

 

The Bolivar Creamery Company was organized at Bolivar on 11 February 1889.  The ob­jects of the company, as stated in the articles of association, were to buy milk for the manu­factur­ing of butter and cheese, to buy and sell livestock and stock feed, and to buy and pre­serve fruits and vegetables for sale.  Most of the company’s seventy‑three shares were owned by Polk County residents, although the largest single stockholder, with ten shares, was J. M. Landeman of Jack­son County.  Presidents of the company were, successively, Elias Walts and Richard B. Viles.  James G. Simpson was the secretary.

 

The records of the creamery offer a glimpse of the wholesale dairy business in the late nine­teenth century.  The minutes of meetings of the stockholders and directors indicate that the com­pany experienced continual difficulty in obtaining enough milk to make the business profitable.  The annual statement for March 1890 ‑ February 1891 included a warning from the president that the company might not survive.  It did not, and in March 1892 the Bolivar Milk Company was or­ganized by many of the former stockholders of the creamery company.  Elias Walt was chairman of the board of directors and James G. Simpson was secretary of the new company.  The minutes of the milk company from May to July 1892 are included in the record book of the creamery com­pany.

 

 

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