By Albert T. Mueller III

Imagine driving around North Platte on a warm summer evening 40 years ago.

Not too many of us had air conditioning, just the breeze of an open car window to cool you off. If you were a youngster, you would squeal with delight if Dad would pull the old station wagon into Fairmont's parking lot at B and Dewey Streets.

As you walked in, all of your senses were treated to an experience that is now just a memory. A rush of cool air soothed the skin. Your eyes captured the red and white checker board floor tile, candy cane wallpaper and the huge stainless steel display counter filled with three gallon tubs of Cherry Nut, Butter Brickle, Chocolate Chip and a multitude of colored and flavored ice cream.

Your ears would be treated to the hum of a mixer laboring to soften the hard ice cream into a malt or milkshake that had to be eaten with a spoon. Who could ever forget an ice cream headache if you ate too fast?

But, best of all was the sweet aroma of a hometown dairy. The aroma of fresh sweet cream, bananas and all the toppings was heaven on earth. It was truly was a family tradition to make a weekly pilgrimage to Fairmont's.

My aunt, Erma Pueppka, managed the dairy store. A lovely, blonde teenager, Deb Lowe, and I were soda jerks. Ice cream cones were five cents a scoop.

Malts were thirty cents and banana splits were fifty cents. I worked at Fairmont's for ten years; three as a soda jerk and the remainder in the dairy plant. The plant processed 20,000 gallons of milk a day, most of which was purchased from local farmers. The plant bottled milk, packaged 4000 gallons of cottage cheese and produced hundreds of three-gallon containers of ice cream daily.

It was amazing the amount of machinery that was crammed into that square block of a building. Several 2000-gallon milk vats, separators, pumps, bottling machines, pasteurizing and homogenizing processors and miles of pipe and conveyors all made of stainless steel. It was quite noisy.

The plant was managed by "Pete" Peterson, a stern but fair man. He did not appreciate it when a milk carton fight would erupt in the plant among workers. Torval Brown (an ornery old cuss) was the chief bottler and Alva Meadows (a West Virginia hillbilly) was the pasteurizer. A feud was always on with those two.

The mid-section of the plant was the shipping department that consisted of a large sharp freezer for ice cream. Frank Sander was in charge of the freezer.

The milk and cheese cooler was adjacent to the freezer. Stan (the man) Wilhelmson was the driving force in the cooler. He could throw four cases of milk at a time. You stayed out his way when he was on a mission.

Pallets of dairy products were then loaded onto the delivery trucks. Some of the local route drivers were Al James, Doug Jurgens and Bob Gustafson.

The rear of the plant was the mechanical room where the boiler and ammonia compressors for heating and cooling were located. Dick Beyer was the chief engineer and never had a moment's peace.

Growing pains were the demise of the plant. With no room to expand, it closed in 1979. The building was torn down and United Nebraska Bank now stands in its place.

The ghost of that old plant at B and Dewey are still in the minds of the workers and its customers. It offered something for all our senses.