In 1956, Hopalong Cassidy was the nation's top cowboy and Dairylea's top promoter.
- Dairylea Fact

Interesting Facts

  • The brand name Dairylea was introduced in January 1923 for all the products the Dairymen’s League was marketing directly.
  • The brand name Dairylea was formed by Dairymen’s League.
  • The iconic “Miss Dairylea” was introduced in the 1920s to help promote Dairylea products. The cute miss adorned promotional materials for this new brand until she was honorably retired 50 years later.
  • As part of the advertising campaign to introduce the Dairylea brand, the League presented New York City with a beautiful Holstein cow nicknamed “Dairylea” in 1923. Dairylea spent her days with elephants and other wildlife at the Central Park Zoo.
  • The “Four a.m. Milk Train” became a thing of the past in 1927 when the Dairymen’s League introduced tank trucks to haul milk.
  • The League elected Thelma Brown, first female director, to the board of directors in 1956.
  • In 1952, the 90-pound Milk Can was replaced forever by the refrigerated bulk cooling tanks that allowed farms to tank pick up.
  • In the 1959-1960 fiscal year, the League began using "computerized" check writing machines. These machines had a key punch machine on which each individual milk producer’s information was typed in — from contract number to pounds of milk delivered to any deductions for supplies. The machine would then compute the correct check and print it out.
  • A 1959 Dairymen’s League Employee Handbook showed that employees could be paid through direct deposit. The handbook lists two options for payment of salaries: either by check at an employee’s desk or by automatic deposit in the employee’s designated bank.
  • Two young Syracuse men flew a plane named Miss Dairylea during a four-and-a-half day endurance flight over Central New York during the 1938 New York State Fair. Because the Dairymen’s League helped sponsor the flight, the plane, a Piper J3 Cub, had a decal of Little Miss Dairylea and milk bottles on its wheel “pants”. The two pilots ate and drank Dairylea products which they collected along with gasoline in spectacular ground to air swoops. Miss Dairylea remained aloft for 106 hours 6 minutes. The previous record for a single engine was 63 hours and 54 minutes.