America’s Dairyland, cheese country, the number one… beverage state. That’s what we are, and we’re proud of it. But if you think we always held these titles, rural historian and former UW professor Jerry Apps says think again.
Before agriculture rooted itself into the Wisconsin economy, we were a vast expanse of land that hosted fur trading between Native Americans and the French. In 1836, Wisconsin became a territory. thus bringing in settlers from New England. Farm land out there was exhausted, so they moved west to grow wheat to mill into flour. At the start of the Civil War, southern Wisconsin hosted thousands of acres of wheat. Some of these old mills are still standing today.
By the 1870s, wheat began to falter, and the farmers hadn’t yet realized the same crops cannot be grown on the same fields continuously without fertilization. Yields declined, and disease ravished the fields. That’s when hop growing got its start, and the beer industry was booming in Milwaukee. Farmers still needed more. William Dempster Hoard came to Wisconsin from New York with a crazy idea: dairy farming.
Previously, milking cows was seen as dirty work reserved for women. Hoard persisted, and by the turn of the century, dairy started to take hold. Farmers couldn’t argue with the profitability, and they built countless cheese factories and massive barns. Out of a need to keep milking cows through the winter, the silo was born. However, it faced criticism at first, people fearing silage would hurt their cattle. Alfalfa and other forages soon followed.
In 1910 Wisconsin became The Dairy State, beating out New York. California is now the leading producer of Dairy, but Wisconsin remains #1 for cheese.