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It may be a small town, but Carnation, Washington, has a big history in the dairy world. The town, located where the Snoqualmie and Tolt rivers meet, is the site of a historic dairy farm that produced milk for the Carnation Milk Company. Besides evaporated milk, which was first produced in 1899, other iconic products for Carnation Milk include Carnation Malted Milk, created in 1927, and Carnation Instant Breakfast, introduced in 1964.

The history of Carnation should be of special interest to students, teachers, and Carnation tutors interested in history or entrepreneurship. The company was founded in 1899 by Elbridge Stuart, a reputable food retailer who had come to the Northwest in 1899 looking for a new investment. He rented a sweetened condensed milk factory that had gone bankrupt, bought the equipment for $5,000, and established the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company with a business partner. He hired Swiss dairyman Johann Baptist Meyenberg, nicknamed “Cheese John,” who had perfected and patented a method of preserving milk by using high heat to sterilize it. The new method did not use sugar as a preservative as the old method did.

On September 6, 1899, the plant processed about 5,800 pounds of milk and made fifty-five cases of evaporated milk, called Carnation Sterilized Cream. The company began producing 10,000 pounds of condensed milk per day, quadrupling that amount within two years.

In 1901, Stuart’s business partner left. Stuart continued working hard, growing sales, and paying off debt. He renamed the company to Carnation Evaporated Milk Company after seeing a display of Carnation Cigars in a shop window in downtown Seattle. Grocers loved the evaporated-milk product; it was shelf stable and provided a reliable source of milk in an era when fresh milk was not consistently available nor drinkable.

Stuart knew that healthy cows made better dairy products. He coined the term “milk from contented cows,” and the slogan stuck for decades. In 1908, he cleared 350 acres of timber and brush and created Carnation Farm for his research dairy herd, initially consisting of one purebred bull and eighty-six registered Holstein cows. Two years later, Stuart cleared 400 more acres. With ever-improving animal husbandry techniques, the herds’ productivity continued to improve so much that Carnation held the world milk production record for thirty-two years. A statue was erected to honor a specific Carnation cow, Segis Pietertje Prospect, who produced a record 37,381 pints of milk in 1920.

The demand for evaporated milk decreased in the twentieth century as the availability of fresh milk and cream and home refrigeration improved. Carnation diversified its products, adding flavored syrups, hot cocoa mixes, ice cream novelties, and even dog food. The company was acquired in 1984 by Nestlé.

In 2004, the dairy operation was discontinued by Nestlé, and the land was converted into a meeting and training facility. Carnation tutors and teachers can use the history of Carnation Farm to give students a view of early-1900 farm life and entrepreneurship at its finest.