My husband recently asked me to find a photo I’d taken of a friend 20 years ago. In looking for that photo (which I never found) I came across some images I’d taken in 2004-2008 on a back-up drive. I got lost in looking through them and remembering how much fun it was to just drive around and find something interesting to photograph. On one of those occasions I asked permission to photograph what was left of Hall Brothers Dairy on 331.
From a publication of the Pintlala Historical Association dated October 2005 (Vol XIX Number 4) I learned that the dairy had originally been established as the Bellingrath Dairies and was purchased by brothers Donald and Grady Hall in 1937. An article in the Montgomery Advertiser said in 1950 the dairy produced 1500 gallons of milk per day, employed 94 people, owned 19 delivery trucks with 28 routes, had 1800 Jersey cattle. According to the article it took 1000 cows to produce the needed 1500 gallons of milk. The average lifespan of the cow was 10 years with 8 years of milk production. Donald bought out his brother Grady in 1950. By 1954 it was the largest independent dairy in the south. In 1954 Donald purchased 1800 gallons of milk from 13 individually-owned dairies in the area allowing the plant on 331 to produce 3300 gallons of milk per day. It was sold to Barber Pure Milk in 1983.
I could not find information on what happened to the buildings after it was sold to Barber. When I stopped to photograph it in April 2005 there was only one building, which I assumed was a store of some kind, and a big barn. The big barn either collapsed or was torn down in the last 5 years or so. I think the smaller building may still be there but maybe not.
I had a Sony F828 at the time and most of these images are from that camera. The F828 produced beautiful colors and would also shoot in infrared mode. I also had a Canon EOS 10D and an unknown lens. It had a max aperture of 2.8 and a 28-75mm focal range. It was probably a Tamron lens.
If you know more about Hall Brothers Dairy I’d love for you to leave a comment.
I have so many images on that old backup drive I’d love to do a more blog posts from them. Maybe call it Fridays from the Archives. But I am an idea person and am terrible on follow-through. It just depends on if I get distracted by something else along the way.