Grayson County TXGenWeb

MKT Employee Magazine

Kraft-Phenix Cheese Company Makes Denison Southwestern Headquarters
Land and a number of buildings formerly occupied as a cotton seed oil mill in northwest Denison, Texas, has been selected by the Kraft-Phenix Cheese Corporation as the location of a major manufacturing plant of several units. Construction of the plant at an estimated $100,000 has begun.
The factory buildings are located on the Katy between Ray Yards and Denison, where there are trackage facilities for about 64 cars, with additional room for track expansion when necessary.
The company will ship into Denison and out of this city many carloads of products annually, as may by the preparation under way to make the Denison plant the largest milk and egg plant in the southwestern territory, covering several states. Denison will become headquarters for the southwestern states covered by this large corporation. This plant will materially affect for the better progress and prosperity of dairy and poultry farmers in Northern Texas and Southern Oklahoma.

LAND AND BUILDINGS DONATED
Citizens of Denison recently purchased the land and buildings and turned the property over to the corporation, believing that the benefits derived through building up a market for the surrounding country would warrant the expenditure, since a year round market will be provided. On the land is one brick building 500 by sixty-five feet, that will be used as the main manufacturing plant. This building is now being remodeled and will house the milk production and cheese manufacturing department, the mayonnaise manufacturing plant, egg-breaking department and cold storage. Later it is planned to add a box factory and possibly a glass factory, through other companies. There is an abundance of glass sand around Denison.
In addition to the manufacturing units the company will move to Denison from Kansas City its southwestern office and division headquarters, which will occupy a new brick office building on the land recently acquired. The first expenditures are approximately $100,000, exclusive of present structure. A number of wooden structures on the land that will not be used are being dismantled.

POWDERED MILK SECTION, TOO
The Kraft-Phenix plant in Denison will be the largest plant of its kind in the southwest, according to plans laid out here by architects from the Chicago office. The cheese manufacturing plant now operated here with a capacity of only 20,000 pounds of milk daily will be moved to the new factory that will have a daily output of at its opening of 100,000 pounds of milk daily and ample room for expansion. Aside from the straight manufacture of cheese, fancy package goods will be prepared, and tentative plans call for a number of sub-plants in different sections of Texas and Oklahoma that will furnish plain cheese for the Denison factory that will be shipped to this city and blended into package preparations. The plant will also have a powdered milk section.
The egg-breaking plant and mayonnaise manufacturing section will have a capacity of 800 cars of eggs annually, with ample expansion room. This is equivalent to 8,000,000 dozen eggs and figuring them at 25c per dozen will an outlay of approximately $2,000,000 in cash for eggs alone, in addition to the milk production department. Because of the many decided advantages of this section for the poultry industry, the egg-breaking plant will prove a boon to poultrymen, and already the large poultry farms are adding to their flocks, not by the hundred but by thousands of baby chicks. Chicken farms are bobbing up on every highway around Denison. Many are as side issues to other employment and those already operating are proving profitable to owners. The big plant will ensure a year round market for eggs, it is pointed out.

CHEESE FACTORY OPENS SOON
The cheese manufacturing section is expected to be ready for operation early in February, as most of the machinery has arrived, while the other departments will be open by March 1, when the southwestern division headquarters will be moved to Denison. The plant will open with 300 employees and more will be added as the different units expand. Many carloads of glassware for putting up mayonnaise dressing, as well as other containers used, will be handled through this monster plant.
The Kraft-Phenix Corporation was attracted to this territory because of the ideal conditions for dairying, poultry raising and shipping facilities. Denison being served by five steam lines and an interurban. The cheese factory now in operation handled 1,000 pounds of milk daily when opened. Farmers began to realize a good profit for their milk and increased dairy herds until 20,000 pounds of milk is delivered daily. the capacity of the present plant.
Back in 1921 there were no cheese factories in the south. A year later there were two and in 1928 there was manufactured more than 6,000,000 pounds of cheese in the south. Farmers in this section in the past have been urged to raise poultry and promote dairying. They did so, but many times saw the market for their products vanish. Prices went down to nothing and the discouraging features too big and they turned attention to cotton, faring little better. Now they are planting food crops for stock and poultry, many are grinding their own feed that they use. while there are poultry farms or small tracts of land around Denison and they are proving profitable, as a recent close survey revealed.

PRODUCTION HAS DOUBLED
While the supply of eggs and milk from this immediate area will be large and will increase from time to time, it is pointed out that a great deal of milk and many carloads of eggs will be shipped to the Denison plant of the Kraft-Phenix Company. There has been a one hundred per cent increase in a year and the indications are now that this year will see another big increase in production.
Several dairy herds have been moved to farms in the Red River valley near Denison and business men are turning their attention to poultry and dairying, since they realize the importance to their trade territory.
The much talked of and often mentioned poultry and milk industry that has lagged for a lack of stable market conditions has finally been established, and not only Denison and this immediate area will benefit, but it is expected the market will spread over a very territory with the coming to Texas of the largest milk products company in the southwestern states.