Looking Back at Mount Desert Island
Reading the Landscape: MDI Dairies Raney Bench, Executive Director, MDI Historical Society
Photo: Ricardson’s Dairy farm, located on Oak Hill Road, operated under the exclusive contract of Seal Harbor summer residents from the 1920s-1940s. Courtesy of John Clark Collection, Mount Desert Island Historical Society
product as healthy and clean. As these improvements were made nationally, Mount Desert Island (MDI) dairies were forced to keep up, but not always from the efforts of the farmers themselves. Highly educated summer residents coming from urban areas, often doctors and professors on the cutting edge of current technology, knew about the methods required to test for milk-borne diseases and the new procedures required to avoid contamination. They brought this knowledge to MDI, working through village improvement associations to require regular inspections and testing of island dairies. The high demand for clean milk created by the influx of summer people placed economic pressure on farmers to meet the standards they expected, which shaped MDI’s dairy industry as it grew from small, family use to large-scale production and eventually pasteurization. Impacts from a Growing Summer Colony In the mid-1800s, the growth of seasonal visitation to Mount Desert Island required additional food resources to feed people staying in boarding houses, and later hotels, and eating at restaurants. As large family estates were built to accommodate returning wealthy families, and Bar Harbor’s reputation as a summer destination was solidified, large-scale food production was necessary to sustain the masses, both from locally sourced products and those shipped here. Growth in visitation outpaced the necessary improvements to infrastructure that towns and business owners should have invested in, resulting in contaminated water and other unsanitary conditions, which brought about outbreaks of disease. In 1873, an
At its height, there were over forty independent dairies on Mount Desert Island, primarily located in the fertile lowlands of the Emery District within the town of Eden (later Bar Harbor). Driving the roads near the Stone Barn Farm, along remnants of farms and fields, familiar places take on new meaning. Suddenly, one can see the small farms and how they were laid out- wood lots, barns, hay fields, garden plots, milk rooms, and pastures were a component of each farm, with various configurations between neighbors. If you know how to look, MDI’s dairy history is still evident on the landscape; all that’s missing are the cows. Milk Safety Producing dairy products that are safe and healthy is no easy task, a fact the general consumer can be forgiven for knowing little about today, but in the late 1800s to mid-1900s, milk safety was daily news. Island newspapers ran regular stories about bacterial counts found at various dairies, and educational campaigns to build awareness of milk safety were targeted for all ages. Summer seminars brought doctors from throughout the region to discuss public safety improvements at local dairies, and health officers worked with community members to increase awareness of milk-borne diseases while reassuring people about milk safety. This reflected a national effort to market the product as vital for human health, especially for children. Building milk into the massive industry requires testing to overcome numerous deadly diseases, cleaning up within the industry, and marketing the
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