At one point, there were one hundred fifty dairies in DeKalb County. The 1939 map (which I have shared in previous blog posts) in the book A Century in North DeKalb: The Story of the First Baptist Church of Chamblee 1875-1975 shows thirty-three dairies in the North DeKalb area including the Wright Dairy.
Read moreIrvindale Dairy
Irvindale Way, which runs off Broad Street in Chamblee is named for Irvindale Dairy. P. E. Hyde started Irvindale Dairy in 1918. This was a time of tremendous growth for Chamblee with thousands of soldiers and employees at World War I Camp Gordon. The dairy was in the area along Broad Street and Irvindale Way near today’s Chamblee post office.
Read moreTuggle Dairy of DeKalb County
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In an Atlanta Constitution article from November 11, 1940, “Tuggle Dairy is a Showplace on Briarcliff Road,” this DeKalb County dairy is described as one of the most modern in the county. The dairy was run by C. C. Tuggle and his two sons, A. C. Tuggle and R. W. Tuggle. DeKalb County had many dairies during this time period.
C. C. Tuggle began in the business when he was a boy, following in his father’s footsteps. The one-hundred-acre dairy farm had an address of 3200 Briarcliff Road.
The dairy had 150 cows in 1940, mostly Jerseys according to the article. A new and modern pasteurizing and bottling plant had recently been built. The volume of milk product each day was about 300 gallons. Milk was sent to restaurants, homes and hotels across Atlanta.
An advertisement on the same page as the article describes the product as “Grade A Natural Raw and Pasteurized MILK, rich in vitamins and food value, especially good for babies, delivered at your door. C. C. Tuggle Dairy, 3200 Briarcliff Road, N. E. Atlanta, phone number VD 1952.”
The dairy also manufactured its own ice in a recently built plant. Readers of the article are invited to visit. “If you are careful about the milk you use-and you ought to be-drop out along Briarcliff Road some day and inspect this new and unusually sanitary dairy. Mr. Tuggle or his courteous sons would be glad to welcome you and show you through an ideally clean and sanitary dairy.”
In 1953, another article about C. C. Tuggle Dairy Farm appears in the Atlanta Constitution. Just a few days before Christmas, a story titled “Merry Christmas, Happy New Year from C. C. Tuggle.” The dairy is run by A. C. Tuggle and R. W. Tuggle by 1953.
Once again, the modern methods and equipment of the dairy are lauded. “Hundreds of families, markets, institutions and hotels in Atlanta and vicinity are served by the C. C. Tuggle Dairy fleet of modern trucks.” Visitors are welcome to Tuggle Dairy to watch the handling of milk, pasteurizing, bottling, washing and sterilizing bottles.
The 1953 article refers to an address of 2370 Briarcliff Road, which today is near where Briarcliff Road meets Sheridan Road. The earlier article address is along Briarcliff just north of Clairmont Road. The distance between these two locations is almost two miles.
Were these two separate locations, were there two dairies named Tuggle or is this just a matter of addresses changing over the years? These are questions I don’t have the answer to yet. If you know more about Tuggle Dairy, please write me at pasttensega@gmail.com.
C. S. Webb Dairy, Glenridge Drive and Johnson Ferry Road
There were several dairies in north DeKalb County in the 1930s and 1940s, including Chamblee, Dunwoody, and Brookhaven, but the C. S. Webb Dairy began when Cliff and Clara Webb came to Sandy Springs in 1924. The dairy was located where Aberdeen Forest subdivision is now located, at the intersection of Johnson Ferry Road and Glenridge Drive.
Read moreNorth DeKalb Dairies
This photo of Pierce Dairy trucks is from the collection of the Chamblee History Project.
There were many dairies in DeKalb County in the 1930s and 1940s and a large portion of those were in Chamblee. According to A Century in North DeKalb: The Story of the First Baptist Church of Chamblee, there were 200 dairies in DeKalb County. DeKalb County was the largest producer of Grade A milk in the south and had more dairies than any other Georgia county.
A map of Chamblee dairies in 1939 shows thirty-three dairies.
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