milk truck

— Electrification helped farmers, but in addition, the farm routine was greatly simplified because milk itself became the desired commodity instead of cream and butter. Milk trucks traveled to neighborhoods like North Pomfret to pick up cans of milk and haul them to the creamery for processing. The empty cans were returned to the farm when the next load was picked up. This required the farmer to purchase and keep extra milk cans on hand, but that was a small price to pay for convenience. Platforms were erected by the side of the main road through Pomfret so that during the winter farmers could sleigh their milk cans to them for pickup by the milk trucks, which were unable to navigate the infrequently maintained back roads where many farmers lived. […] The biggest impediment to universal automobile use in North Pomfret and rural Vermont was the roads. Early cars adapted well to dry, summertime excursions on roads built for foot and animals. Springtime was another matter, however. One of the earliest tangible benefits of automobility was the development of milk trucks before the 1930s. Milk trucks drove into rural neighborhoods to pick up the farmer’s milk cans and brought them to the creamery. This worked well during fair-weather months. An example of the experience of the first milk truck in North Pomfret shows that in 1928, spring roads could be impassible. The first milk truck was outfitted by Sherm Manning, who was married to a North Pomfret girl. Manning was picking up milk in the neighborhood and delivering to the Bellows Fall Creamery in 1926 and on occasion hired Ernest Leonard to drive for him as he did in November 1926, before hiring him full-time in March 1928, just in time for the mud to appear. Leonard did the best he could for a while with the milk truck, but eventually, the North Pomfret correspondent reported, the “roads are so muddy between here and White River Junction that the milk truck can’t get through.” North Pomfret farmers had to resort to using their horses and sleds or wagons to bring their milk to the West Hartford rail depot in order to ship their milk to Bellows Falls.

— You need to protect me: I am only a milk truck.