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Dairy on the Prairie 23
to travel onerous distances. With less competition, the Significance of Bowen's that dot the landscape. Extant dairy barns span the
bigger companies could lower the price paid for milk. Prairie and Jones County to late nineteenth to late twentieth centuries in construc-
Farmers rebelled against these monopolies by form- tion and reflect the changing ideas about dairying and
ing their own creamery co-operatives around the turn- Iowa Dairy History as barn design through the years. Barns were not com-
of-the century. By 1887, Diamond Creameries had an Expressed Through mon until the 1870s, with the earliest dairy barns typ-
interest in at least 27 creameries; most of these loca- ically having a basement level where cows could be
tions were probably skim stations. Surviving Structures and milked and manure easily removed. Hay and grain
Places were stored in the upper level, where they could be
Sherman sold out his share of the Diamond Cream- thrown down or dropped by chute to the feed bunks
ery to Simpson, Mclntyre and Company in 1884, but Bowen's Prairie and Jones County played a signif- below. These heavy timber frame buildings have foun-
his involvement in the dairy industry was far from icant role in the foundation and development of Io- dations made of local limestone and are usually
over. In 1886, he was appointed the first Dairy Com- wa's dairy industry. Beginning in 1864, with Asa banked into the hilly terrain, with the open basement
missioner of Iowa.84 Sherman served in leadership Bowen opening the county's first cheese factory at Bo- end usually facing to the east or south to take advan-
positions in several dairy associations, including as wen's Prairie, Jones County was at the forefront of tage of sunlight and to protect from the prevailing
President of the Northern Iowa Butter and Cheese the state's dairy industry. The statewide significance winds. A few barns built entirely of locally-quarried
Association, President of the Iowa Butter and Egg came largely through the efforts of Bowen, John Stew- stone have been noted in the county.86
Association, President of the Iowa Dairymen Associ- art, and Henry D. Sherman, whose individual contri-
ation, and Vice-President of the National Butter and butions were also explored in the previous pages. The Ross Barn located in the Bowen's Prairie neigh-
Egg Association. Most of these associations arose in However, while the history of Jones County dairying borhood, along what was historically the Military
the 1870s and served to mass market products and is documented in the historical accounts, census, and Road (now U.S. 151 in Jones County), was a two-lev-
distribute information about how to make farms and legal records, what is physically left of this industry el, gable-entry basement barn built c.1867 by
commercial dairies more profitable. in the county? Johnathan B. Ross.87 He established a farmstead at this
location next to the cheese factory that he had built in
Milk advertisement. Courtesy of State Historical The greatest number of dairy-related resources still 1867. The cheese factory exists today only as an ar-
Society ofIowa, Iowa City.85 standing in Jones County is represented by the barns chaeological site (13JN211), with the barn recently torn
down to make room for an expansion of the highway.
Prior to its demolition, the Iowa Department of Trans-
portation, in partial mitigation of the impact to this
historic property, documented the barn through pho-
tographs, measured drawings, and historical re-
search.88
The Ross Barn measured 30 feet in width and 40
feet in length and was comparatively small in size to
the average basement barn dimensions of 40 to 50 feet
in width and 60 to 100 feet in length. The smaller size
of the Ross Barn suggests that J.B. Ross was focusing
more of his attention on his cheese factory operation
than on his own dairy production, keeping his dairy
herd size to a minimum. According to the 1870 U.S.
Agricultural Census, Ross' livestock consisted of two
horses and nine milk cows, with the farm
producing corn, oats, and potatoes in addition to 150
