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Courtesy of James E. Casto
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A Guyan Creamery wagon can be seen making its way along 5th.
Avenue. The distinctive brick work
on the background identifies it as Huntington East High School. That dates
the photo to sometime
after 1940, as that was the year the former high school was built.
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HUNTINGTON --
It's not just that many once-familiar Huntington buildings have vanished over
the years,
many of the sounds of the city have also disappeared. One such sound:
the rhythmic "clip-clop" of horses' hooves,
the squeak of wagon wheels and the
calls of "whoa" and "giddy-up" as the milkman made his appointed rounds.
For decades,
the Guyan Creamery Co. delivered milk and cream to thousands of customers in
neighborhoods
throughout the community. It was only near the end of its years of
operation that the diary
put its horses out to pasture and replaced them with a
fleet of delivery trucks.
Burt L.
Wilson was the president of Guyan Creamery, president of the Huntington Land Co.
and vice president
of the Twentieth Street Bank. He came to Huntington from his
native Roane County in 1919. Five years after
coming to Huntington, he became
associated with the Guyan Creamery. In 1932, Wilson, T.W.
Payton and R.A.
Crawford officially incorporated the creamery. Wilson died in 1951.
In addition
to its milk plant at 519 Bridge Street in Guyandotte, the company also operated
a popular dairy bar
and restaurant for a number of years. In 1957, Huntington's
Spring Hill Dairy became a wholly owned subsidiary
of Guyan Creamery and
subsequently the operations of the two companies were gradually consolidated.
In 1960,
Huntington's Guyan Creamery and the Valley Bell Dairy of Charleston merged into
a combined company,
headquartered in Charleston. Initially, the Huntington dairy
continued in operation under
the Valley Bell name but ultimately was closed.
Guyan
Creamery's former building on Bridge Street is still standing
and has housed a
variety of different businesses over the years.
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Note: This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on Oct. 06 , 2014
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