100 Years of History – By Carol Pelosi
Cows have always been an important part of the Wake Forest story. One of the town’s iconic photographs, an aerial view of the intersection where Wait Avenue used to meet South Avenue at the Wake Forest College campus, the focus was on the driver and his wagon and mule – but it also captured a cow grazing between the street and the railroad.
Many homes had a cow as well as a horse (later an automobile) and some chickens. At least one college professor – Dr. N.Y. Gulley – owned a small dairy on Forestville Road.
But for 80 years most of the cows were out of town but on multi-acre dairy farms that ringed the town: It was all made possible by improvements in refrigeration and the construction of the Pine State Creamery Company in Raleigh in1919. Refrigerated trucks clattered down paved and dirt roads, collecting the milk daily.
There was the Caveness farm on the south, the Holding farm on the east, the Jones brothers farm out Jones Dairy Road toward Rolesville, the Lye farm, the Soule farm, the farms out in the Harricane and the largest farm, Marshall (later Marshall-Stroud) dairy on 1,100 acres with 900 cows.
These farmers battled the weather. Emmett Marshall in August of 1977 said the cold weather during the winter and an ongoing drought had damaged his corn and barley crops to the point that he was having a hard time finding feed for his cows.
“They got to eat every day, six times a day,” Marshall told The Wake Weekly. He said it was costing him about $500 to keep his 900 cows fed. Usually he spends about $150 to $200 a day on soybean meal to supplement the feed he raises.
Now he and 12 other dairy farmers are waiting to hear from Washington about their application for an emergency assistance program for help in feeding their cows. The emergency cattle feed program passed by Congress and President Jimmy Carter last week would pay Marshall about $180 a day, he figures. The largest dairy in the area, Marshall grosses about $2,000 a day from the sale of milk.
It was not just the cold weather that Marshall and his fellow dairy farmers had to fight. There were fluctuations in the price they were paid for the milk, changes in the federal government’s milk programs, and additional requirements about milk safety.
By the late 1980’s, the landscape had changed drastically. Caveness had been out of the dairy business for years. Holding farm was no longer a dairy, just pastures for beef cattle, and in 1986 Emitt Marshall and his son-in-law, Phil Stroud, sold their 1,100-acre dairy to Raleigh developer and builder Jud Ammons.
Phil and Linda Stroud – Emmett had retired – had been gearing down for years. They used to plant 500 acres in corn to feed the livestock; this year they planted two acres. They still have about 250 head of livestock, mostly beef cattle, and they plan to keep to farming while they consider their options.
They had just sold the last 122 cows through a federal buyout program. They loaded the cows on trucks which took them to Siler City and the Carolina Stockyards where they will be sold and sent to be slaughtered.
Jud Ammons said he had no definite plans for the 1,100 acres. “We really didn’t buy it for anything in particular. I like to buy,” Ammons said. He rounded up his sons on weekends and worked with them to plant pine trees all over the pastures. Ammons also tore down the silos and barns and emptied a particularly smelly pond next to Forestville Road.
Holding Farms Development Corporation presented at least two different plans for the old Holding dairy farm but nothing went farther than the planning stage. The nearly 1,000 acres remained fallow for years except when developers bought bits and pieces to complete projects.
The Jones brothers, Robert and Roy Ed, decided it was easier to grow houses than milk cows on their farm and went into the development business themselves.
In 1986 Wake Forest’s commissioners agreed to sell the subdivision on Jones Dairy Road 348,000 gallons of water every day, enough water for 400 houses on 240 acres. There were problems with providing sewage disposal so the Jones brothers built a package plant on their property.
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One Response
My mother, Leila Holding Aycock, said her family had a cow and kept it in an area behind their house. Their address was 122 E South Ave (across from Wake Forest Baptist Church).