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Show United States Department of the Interior National Park Service I National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 Erekson Artillo Dairy Farmhouse Name of Property OMB No. 1024-0018 Salt Lake County, Utah County and State remaining parcel represents the original farmhouse/yard and contributes to the historic agricultural setting and feeling of the property. Historical Significance The Erekson Artillo Dairy Farmhouse derives its significance in the area of Agriculture from its association with the establishment of the commercial Artillo Guernsey Dairy and its owner Arion Erekson, who was an important advocate for the raw milk movement in the mid-twentieth century. All three of the Erekson boys worked on the dairy farm and were college-educated. Reid became an engineer and Arthur earned degrees in education and dairy science. Arthur introduced pure-bred Guernsey dairy cows to the family farm in the 1930s. He later earned a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and became an expert on cheese production with the Borden Company. Also in the 1930s, the Erekson family had some success raising mink on the farm. The youngest son, Arion, graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in drama and speech in 1933, and later did graduate work at the University of Minnesota in Dairy Bacteriology. He met his wife, Helen Elizabeth Patch, in Minneapolis. They were married in 1941. After serving in World War II, Arion returned to Utah to run the dairy with his father. John Erekson promised Arion that if he managed the farm for twenty years, he would get the deed. One of the goals of the 1963 remodeling was to give John B. Erekson a suite of rooms on the main floor. John Benbow Erekson died at home on November 12, 1965, at the age of 91. Arion and Helen Erekson raised eight children in the family farmhouse. The family did most of the work, although high school boys from the neighborhood were hired to help with the milking. The only long-term employee was Wayne Bowden who commuted from Midvale to manage the farm. After World War II, the dairy began using the name Artillo Guernsey Dairy or Erekson Artillo Dairy. During this time, another branch of the extended family operated a large dairy at 5900 South and 900 East, which was known simple as the Erekson Dairy. According to family tradition, the name "Artillo" was a combination of Arthur and the "hill" where the farmhouse was located . The working dairy farm included not only the Erekson property, but pasture land rented from neighboring property owners. Arion Erekson served on the boards of the Utah Farm Bureau, the Salt Lake County Farm Bureau, and the Big and Little Cottonwood Tanner Ditch Company. As a professional dairyman, Arion Erekson was an advocate of raw milk, despite a 1949 law that required pasteurization. A loophole in the law allowed the family to sell milk directly from the farm. The Artillo Dairy was the largest dairy in Murray to sell raw milk, which is particularly noteworthy when there was a processing plant, the Hiland Dairy, less than a mile away from the farm. In 1959, an editorial report in the Provo Daily Herald of a meeting where Arion Erekson was the keynote speaker, noted the following: Mr. Erekson operates a dairy of 75 cows in Murray and sells all the milk, raw, at this plant and often runs short of demand. Salt Lake Citizens tell me they are not always lucky enough to find any milk not already sold. Mr. Erekson has answered several summons into court for so-called violation of Utah's raw milk act, but as yet no judge has been dumb enough to believe Erekson has violated Section 8 page 11 |
