Collections record Beta

Milk Crate - Toll Gate Dairy

2010-263-1

Milk crate. Body made of horizontal slates of wood. Corners and top and bottom edges are reinforced with curved metal. Crate has no bottom. Metal wire stretched across bottom and throughout interior to create a grid where milk bottles were placed. Handles carved into wood on two sides. Stamped on two sides: "Toll Gate Dairy/3 Litchfield, Conn 64."

Toll Gate Farm began in 1939 in Chestnut Hill Road, formed by Preston and Selma Davenport. The farmhouse and barns were constructed c.1940, and the farm housed a purebred Ayrshire herd. The farm processed their own milk (pasteurized, and later homogenized), first at the farm and then in a dairy bar on Torrington Road which sold milk, cream, cottage cheese, and ice cream and contained a bottling center. The bar was open from 1944 to 1957. The farm eventually supplemented production with raw milk from other local herds, and delivered as far as Winsted and New Milford. The dairy stopped operation in the 1970s.

c.1940

15" length x 12" depth x 12 1/2" height

• metal
• wood