Many people today are discouraged by the lack of really good, locally made butter. Much of the stuff passed off to the public is tasteless by comparison with the fine products made by local creameries in the years gone by. Portage County had many fine creameries, among them were the creameries at Blaine, Buena Vista, Stockton, Sharon, Nelsonville, Custer, Arnott, Bancroft, Ellis, Plover and other areas of Portage County.

Through the years there has been a serious decimation of these small creameries, first built to capitalize on the dairying that was so important to the state. Buena Vista was an extremely popular area for creameries, in 1897 the Lone Star Creamery, one of the first creameries in Portage County, was organized and built. The original building burned in 1903, and was soon rebuilt, remaining in operation until 1929.

Competition was keen in the early creamery days. In 1900 the Buena Vista Creamery was organized. It began operations on July 1st of that year, vying for the cream and milk business of the Buena Vista area with the Lone Star Creamery.

In 1904 further competition arrived in the form of the Union Creamery. This foundation had an up-and-down history, opening on July 1, 1904 and closing in 1913, reopening as a cheese factory in 1918 to close again in 1923. It was again re-opened for a time as a cheese factory in 1934, but conditions were against the project. It soon closed again.

So it was that creameries were important to the development of the Buena Vista area of Portage County. Like many other things in the “good old days,” the creameries and their fine butter and cream products have vanished from the landscape leaving only empty hulls of buildings and memories of locally made delicious butter.

Editor’s note: Much of the information for the above article was gleaned from research done by Scott McCormick. Mr. McCormick, now a resident of Princeton, Wisconsin, was a Portage County resident in the early years of this century. His family was involved in the creameries of Portage County, especially those at Maynard’s Corners, Buena Vista, Almond, Sharon and Plover.