My Memories of Harpain’s Dairy
Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:44 am
I have no doubt that the young Fresno kids of today would be surprised to learn that a full scale dairy farm used to exist along Cedar Street just down from Ashlan. Yet to our family it was simply the place we went to buy milk. However, we didn’t always go to Harpain’s. At first we, like most everyone else of moderate means, had milk delivered every morning by the Milkman. If I was sleeping lightly in the morning I sometimes would hear the sound of a metal clank on the doorstep at approximately 5 am. It was the large wire carrier with a wooden handle that held half gallons of ice cold milk.
Eventually Mom decided it was too expense to have milk delivered because we could just drive the short distance to the local dairy farm and pick it up ourselves. Walt Harpain had operated his dairy long before the first housing track went in at Cedar and Ashlan. It was truly located in the middle of vast stretches of farm lands. In the late 1950’s that all changed and houses appeared all around the once solitary dairy farm and the local traffic to buy milk must of increased exponentially.
I got my Driver’s License when I was 16 years old and the main reason my parents said it was OK, was to drive to Harpain’s Dairy to get the family milk. Turning off of Cedar got you on to the farm’s long access road and you drove right down the middle of seemingly endless fields of Alfalfa on both sides of the road. Finally the road curved sharply to the right and I would arrive at a very small parking lot that had what looked like a roadside fruit stand. The counter was open to the air and there was usually a line of people waiting to buy milk and other dairy products. There were always 3 or 4 young guys busily working the counter whose job was to grab milk bottles from the glass front refrigerators located directly behind them. It was a small working area but it seemed to work efficiently. I remember they always wore white pants with checkered red or blue shirts. We had our own metal carrier but dozens of them hung from the wood beam above just in case you forgot yours. All my friends raved about the chocolate milk – but my personal fav was the fruit punch!
I also remember many years of Harpain’s when I just tagged along with my Mom before I learned to drive. Once we arrived at the parking lot, I was off to investigate the farm so I wouldn’t be bored waiting in line. My first stop would be to the milking shed to see if they had the Holsteins hooked up to the automatic milkers. Sometimes it was empty and sometimes you got lucky and it was crammed full of cows! The milkman was so used to visitors he would barely look up at you when you poked your head in.
Then it was off to check out the antique buggies housed in kind of a car port, I only remember the roof but no sides. They all had black leather seats. Next, I would head for the corrals that had various farm animals and occasionally I would see the peacock with its’ feathers in full display. A very small irrigation ditch ran back to the back part of the farm and it was there that I encountered the large Geese roaming freely. The first dozen times I always ran when they started to charge me. As I got older I became more brave and one time I stood my ground. Well don’t ya know that Goose bite the crap out of my leg! It really hurt and from then on, I always avoided the back part. I moved from Fresno before Harpain’s closed. It seems to me that North Fresno just wouldn’t feel like home without the Harpain’s Dairy Farm.
Eventually Mom decided it was too expense to have milk delivered because we could just drive the short distance to the local dairy farm and pick it up ourselves. Walt Harpain had operated his dairy long before the first housing track went in at Cedar and Ashlan. It was truly located in the middle of vast stretches of farm lands. In the late 1950’s that all changed and houses appeared all around the once solitary dairy farm and the local traffic to buy milk must of increased exponentially.
I got my Driver’s License when I was 16 years old and the main reason my parents said it was OK, was to drive to Harpain’s Dairy to get the family milk. Turning off of Cedar got you on to the farm’s long access road and you drove right down the middle of seemingly endless fields of Alfalfa on both sides of the road. Finally the road curved sharply to the right and I would arrive at a very small parking lot that had what looked like a roadside fruit stand. The counter was open to the air and there was usually a line of people waiting to buy milk and other dairy products. There were always 3 or 4 young guys busily working the counter whose job was to grab milk bottles from the glass front refrigerators located directly behind them. It was a small working area but it seemed to work efficiently. I remember they always wore white pants with checkered red or blue shirts. We had our own metal carrier but dozens of them hung from the wood beam above just in case you forgot yours. All my friends raved about the chocolate milk – but my personal fav was the fruit punch!
I also remember many years of Harpain’s when I just tagged along with my Mom before I learned to drive. Once we arrived at the parking lot, I was off to investigate the farm so I wouldn’t be bored waiting in line. My first stop would be to the milking shed to see if they had the Holsteins hooked up to the automatic milkers. Sometimes it was empty and sometimes you got lucky and it was crammed full of cows! The milkman was so used to visitors he would barely look up at you when you poked your head in.
Then it was off to check out the antique buggies housed in kind of a car port, I only remember the roof but no sides. They all had black leather seats. Next, I would head for the corrals that had various farm animals and occasionally I would see the peacock with its’ feathers in full display. A very small irrigation ditch ran back to the back part of the farm and it was there that I encountered the large Geese roaming freely. The first dozen times I always ran when they started to charge me. As I got older I became more brave and one time I stood my ground. Well don’t ya know that Goose bite the crap out of my leg! It really hurt and from then on, I always avoided the back part. I moved from Fresno before Harpain’s closed. It seems to me that North Fresno just wouldn’t feel like home without the Harpain’s Dairy Farm.