Last month we published the first story of our new feature Backroads Redux. To recap, I recently discovered something remarkable at the Greene County Genealogical Society Library. It was a timeworn publication titled Backroads, created nearly half a century ago by a Waynesburg Central Publications class. The class had been taught by Therese Albert, a respected teacher in the district for years.
Published in 1977, Backroads is a collection of interviews conducted by students with their grandparents and older family friends. Through these conversations, the students captured stories of everyday life in the county—memories of small-town traditions, hard times, simple joys, and the changing landscape across generations. These are not polished historical accounts, but voices preserved in their own words.
The voices captured in its pages speak from another era entirely. In this series, we revisit these stories as they were originally told. The stories include everything from farms, railroads, epidemics, old-time radio, hunting tales, bakeries, buildings, and college dorm gangs.
This month’s feature was written by the late Bill Leskosky about Bryan’s Dairy. He had interviewed his uncle John Bryan, whose grandfather had started the business back in 1918.
In the Ice Plant (Bryan’s Dairy)
According to the article, the business was originally simply called the Waynesburg Ice Plant. In 1925, it became Waynesburg Sanitary Dairy. It wasn’t until 1962 that the name was changed to Bryan’s Dairy, Inc.
When the business started, its purpose was to mass produce one-foot square blocks of ice for home and business delivery for ice boxes. The plant owned two horse-drawn wagons, which were driven by “husky men” who had to cut and weigh each block before carrying it into the customer. They used large tongs if the piece was small or placed a leather blanket on their shoulders to carry the larger chunks.
On summer days, swarms of children would surround the ice wagon hopping to pick up excess chips for a frozen treat.
The ice was made in three chambers called dungeons. Two of those rooms were flooded by a creek that ran under the plant and the third by means of a water pipe. The resulting huge chunks of ice were cut by two-man saws. At that point, they would place the blocks in chutes to get it to the wagons. Those chutes were still in the building at the time of its closing.
In 1925, Bryan and his brother and sister assumed the managerial duties upon the death of his grandfather. He worked in the plant processing raw milk into drinking milk. At the time of the story (1976), he was still doing that job.
Many locals of a certain age will swear that Bryan’s milk (and their 8% cottage cheese) were without a doubt superior to any modern-day products.
However, most people today remember Bryan’s Dairy for its ice cream. In the story, Laskosky explained that ice cream is very soft in its initial stage. It was taken first to the “hardening room,” which was “kept at 20 degrees below zero by a big fan and pipes filled with pure 100% ammonia.” It remained in that room for 48 hours before being transferred to the next freezer, which was kept at 20 degrees above zero.
Reading that description of the freezer brought back immediate chilling memories for me. Like many people around here, my first job was dipping ice cream at Bryan’s Dairy.
I’m not sure if one particular rite of passage was a time-honored tradition through the years, or something unique to my era. However, in my time behind the counter, I was introduced to the “good-natured” hazing of the newest employee. The older boys would insist the low man on the seniority scale was responsible for bringing the large tubs of ice cream from the freezer to the serving area.
Needless to say, the giant metal door would lock behind the poor newbie as soon as his search for the new tub began. I seem to remember the length of the icy incarceration was subject to whoever the senior scooper happened to be. Fortunately, my time in the chilly clink was short lived.
Many young people (and parents) today would be incredulous at this form of “initiation.” However, (right or wrong) most in my generation view it as part of a tapestry of experiences that make a community unique.
After all, anyone who remembers their black raspberry or maplenut ice cream would surely spend a little time in that freezer for a double dip cone.
