Changing Patterns of Cheese Manufacturing in America's Dairyland

In this essay the author reviews the changing spatial distribution of Wisconsin's cheese factories, both over the past three-quarters of a century and over the past twenty years. A century ago the crossroads cheese factory was a prominent part of the rural landscape, particularly in those portions of the state that were too distant from the Chicago and Milwaukee markets for shipment of fluid milk. The nineteenth century witnessed the westward movement of cheese manufacturing from New England into upstate New York and then to Wisconsin. Those two states produced 61% of the US' cheese by the end of that century. Wisconsin counted 2,807 cheese factories in 1922; by 2009 that number had fallen to 126. Some of this decline was related to the dramatic drop in numbers of dairy farms and dairy cows in many parts of the state. Yet while the number of dairy farms was declining, the average size of those remaining grew, reaching 97.5 cows in 2009.