ranching at Point Reyes

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Visitors come to Point Reyes to soak in its vastness. An odd and almost lost place jutting out into the Pacific Ocean for no other reason (?) than geology.

Pioneers came here to raise cows, as they did in their native Ireland, Sweeden, Switzerland and Portugal. Milk was turned into cheese and boated 40 miles south to the Golden Gate to feed hungry San Franciscans. Fresh milk was not shipped because it spoiled quickly without refrigeration.

The distance to San Francisco and east Marin communities precluded the ability to ship milk for domestic consumption. In the absence of refrigeration, the raw milk was briefly useable by the ranch families and employees. Collected by milkers either outdoors or inside large milking barns, raw milk sat in pans inside dairy houses to allow for cream separation. The surplus skim milk was dumped into a drain leading to an open trench, finding its way to penned, thirsty hogs. It was not unusual to see swine and casks of butter shipped off together on the decks of schooners headed for the city.   source: N.P.S.

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

If you have cows you need hay, and some clever way to bale it. This horse-drawn contraption probably picked up and packed a lot of straw.

At the far corner of the Pierce Point Dairy a shed has the entire array of farm implements used here up until the dairy shut down in 1940.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Record yields of butter and cheese came from the dairy farms at Point Reyes throughout the late 19th century. Herds of Devons, Jerseys, Guernseys, and later on Holsteins, numbering from 100 to 250 cows per ranch, catapulted the Point Reyes enterprise as perhaps the largest operation in the early years of the state. In 1867, Marin County produced 932,429 pounds of butter, the largest yield of butter in California. These huge amounts of butter were produced in an era when the finest restaurants served every good steak with a melting slab of butter on top.   source: N.P.S.

--more tomorrow


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