| It’s hard to imagine a time when you couldn’t pick up a gallon of milk at the local grocery store. Mayfield was the very first dairy to produce pasteurized milk for residents of McMinn County in 1922 when the original milk plant was built in downtown Athens, Tennessee.
Over the next few years, the plant added buttermilk, butter, chocolate milk and cottage cheese to the dairy product list. By 1945, the business had grown so much that the plant expanded 2,000 sq. ft., and new equipment was added. Mayfield created the most modern dairy plant in the Southeast three years later at the plant’s current location on East Madison Avenue.
- Mayfield began producing 600 gallons of milk in 1945, and the Athens plant production volume will be around 43 million gallons for 2005.
Thomas B. Mayfield purchased a small ice cream business in 1921 that produced 10 gallons per hour—that’s only 160 half-gallons per day! Ice cream production was moved from Mayfield Creamery to the new Athens plant in 1957.
- In 2005, the Athens plant produced an estimated 12,500,000 gallons of ice cream.
After touring the Athens Plant, guests can go to the Visitor Center to try a scoop of ice cream at the dipping parlor and browse through Mayfield memorabilia in the Gift Shop.
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