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Clark's SWH Dairy
Southwest Harbor
See “Clark's Dairy History” at the document link below.
These bottles were designed by my father, “Jack” Clark. He worked with one of the large bottle manufacturers on the design. The bottles came by rail to Ellsworth. The railroad car was parked off to the side and each day, after the routes were done Jack drove to Ellsworth with an empty milk truck and filled it with the new bottles. There were a lot of bottles to handle after a long day delivering milk (he got up at 3 a.m. daily). It took days to unload the railcar and transport them back to the processing plant. Back then, milkmen rode around from delivery to delivery with the doors open. The sound of the glass bottles in the wooden milk cases with metal dividers was deafening if the truck was on a bad road.
This dairy building was built in 1952 with land O. J. purchased from Ewell Trundy. Bill Wentworth worked on the masonry crew, Jasper Hutchins built the structure using lots of second hand lumber.
In the early years Clarks SW Dairy bought milk locally. Later, milk came from as far away as Aroostook County when local farms shut down.
O. J. had a spring dug out in a wet area near the plant and built a springhouse over it. The spring water was used to run the dairy, cleaning the equipment and everything else. In the 70's, lemonade was made from spring water. Later on around 1980, after Clarks Southwest Dairy closed its doors, my father Jack started bottling and selling the spring water in a distilled form – by the gallon. Currently, the site where Clark's Southwest Dairy was is a spring water plant.
Nelson Jones took many of the photos below of Clarks SW Dairy. He was a minor owner in the business and had been to school for dairy science. Jack did the routes, Nelson did the processing plant. It was hot work being in there all summer with all that steam and hot water for cleaning equipment, milk tanks, surfaces, floors etc. At my request he sent me photos many years after Clark's had sold out. Living out of state, an old man by then, he was surprised to hear that almost all the dairies he knew in Maine had closed. I sent him a few old Clarks bottles, he was pleased.
Other Names Associated With This Dairy: Clark's Southwest Dairy
Additional Photos
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Two bottles
Southwest dairy bottle cap (milk)
Southwest dairy bottle cap (heavy cream)
Southwest Dairy bottle cap (skim milk)
Clark's Southwest Dairy building
This building was built in 1952 with land O. J. purchased from Ewell Trundy.
Early Clark's Southwest Dairy building 1952
Later the loading dock is added along with a boiler room and a compressor room.
Clark's Southwest Dairy delivery trucks
Delivery trucks
Hank Joyce and Jack Clark
O.J. and dairy truck cake
Sea Wall Campground 1951
Jack was delivering milk to the Seawall Campground, part of Acadia National Park, when a camper handed him a bouquet of lupins and said “smile” as they took his photo, then sent him the photo in the form of a postcard that you see here.
Bottle washer
O. J. Clark referred to the bottle washer as the "Cadillac' because it cost as much as one. The clean bottles went from the bottle washer to the bottling room through a hole in the wall. You can see the bottling machine in the back room.
Milk plant with milk cans for picking up raw milk from local farms.
That tank that Jack is looking into is perhaps where he made buttermilk. It could be my brother Tom Clark, but Jack thought it was a young Jack.
Loading platform
This was a great transition area out of the elements and adjacent to the cooler where it was possible to organize the comings and going of the milk trucks.
Gallon jugs
Mixing tank room
The mixing tank has a small motor on it to run the paddle inside. I think they made lemonade and chocolate milk in this tank. See behind it (almost hidden) the tank used to make buttermilk.
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