From the Calendar: Brooklawn Creamery

In 1900, William H. Stevens built a small building that would have been located at roughly 4730 North State Road 32 in Oakley to house a creamery.  He named the small business, “The Only Creamery” and the operation ran for two or three days a week making butter and ice cream.

In 1912, William’s son, Reed, renamed the company “Weber Creamery Company” and set about improving the business.  Sometime in the years after 1918 but before 1924, Mr. Stevens again changed the name of his business, this time choosing “Brooklawn Creamery Company” as the sobriquet. 

Beginning in 1918, with the purchase of the former Kamas Creamery, Brooklawn began to expand quite rapidly.

 In 1924, Reed Stevens, George Stevens, Clyde Hall, Christopher H. Stoven, and Everett Gunn purchased a building in the Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake and opened the Brooklawn Butter Shop.  Clyde Hall and Everett Gunn oversaw the day to day operations and hired as many as six women to wrap and prepare the butter for sale.  Most of the dairy product required to make butter came from the C.H. Stoven dairy in Parley’s Park (today’s Snyderville area).  This marked the third location that was operated by the Brooklawn company.

Creameries and/or cheese factories were purchased from smaller operations throughout the second half of the 1920’s and through much of the 1930’s.  In 1927, the Evanston factory was purchased and in 1928 the Lyman plant was brought into the company fold.  This placed two of the company’s five properties in Wyoming.  The following plants were obtained with the year of purchase: Beaver, 1932; Salt Lake City, 1934; Panguitch, 1935; Mt. Pleasant, 1936; Delta, 1937.  Also, at some unspecified date, a factory was built or purchased in Oakley, Idaho.

At the height of its growth, Brooklawn Creamery Company consisted of eleven creameries and/or cheese factories in Utah, Wyoming and Idaho.  Larger creamery operations either bought out the eleven creameries or they were shut down as business became unprofitable.  The Kamas branch of the business was closed in 1939 and the building was sold to the LDS Church and became the local cannery.  The Dairy Farmers of America creamery in Beaver, Utah is the only remaining operation that was once part of the Brooklawn Creamery Company.

In Oakley, the Stevens family continued to grow their own herd of Holstein dairy cows.  The barns to the south and southwest of the historic Stevens home were part of the growing dairy operation.  The family also had farmland and barns down Millrace Road and where the Oakley Meadows subdivision now stands.  Reed Stevens died in 1949 and the company passed to different family members. 

Around 1971, the Oakley branch of the business closed its doors.  Later, the building was sold to John and Ruth Sundberg and they converted the northern end into a home and used the southern end as a woodshop housing Walrus Woodworking.