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Courtesy of James E. Casto
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The Imperial Ice Cream Co. plant was built
at 101 8th, Avenue
in 1921.
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HUNTINGTON --
Who doesn't love ice cream? Americans eat millions of tons of the tasty
treat
every year, and Huntingtonians are no exception.
The Imperial
Ice Cream Co. was organized in 1908 and built its Huntington plant at 8th Avenue
and 1st Street in 1921. In 1945, it was acquired by Fairmont Foods of Omaha,
Nebraska.
(The name "Fairmont Foods" was derived from the location of the
company's
original dairy products plant in at Fairmont, Nebraska.)
In a 1956
interview with the Huntington Advertiser, plant manager John W. File said the
Huntington plan
had 54 employees and an annual payroll of approximately
$200,000. File said it produced about 900,000
gallons of ice cream and sherbets
each year, sold to customers in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky
and
southern Ohio, and delivered by a fleet of two dozen trucks. The ice cream
was
marketed under the brand name "Fairmont Imperial."
The company
produced its own milk, delivered to the Huntington plant each morning in tank
trucks lined
with stainless steel. The process of turning the milk into ice
cream was highly automated, with the product
pumped through a complex series of
pipes, tanks and vats, ending up on a packaging line that turned out
filled containers at a rate of 1,000 gallons an hour. "No hand touches it from cow to
carton," File said.
By 1961,
Fairmont Foods had consolidated its ice cream production at its plant in
Parkersburg and converted the
Huntington facility into a wholesale distribution
center for its dairy products. Fairmont closed its
Huntington operation in the
1970s, and the old ice cream plant was later demolished.
In 1984, its
site was used for construction of Trowbridge Manor, an 86-unit high-rise
apartment building
operated by the Huntington Housing Authority. The building's
namesake, Robert Trowbridge,
spent 35 years with the Housing Authority, retiring
as it executive director.
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