The History of Southern Dairies

SOUTHERN DAIRIES

The Southern Dairies Building is also significant in the area of industry for its association with the growing dairy industry in Atlanta in the 1930s.
Upon opening operations in Atlanta in 1927, Southern Dairies was a nationally established company headquartered in Washington, D.C. with 36 plants and 52 distribution centers from Baltimore to Miami.
When its Atlanta plant opened in 1935, it was one of only four dairy processing plants in the Atlanta metro area.
Each of these companies was a pioneer in the local dairy products processing industry; up until this time, most milk sold in Atlanta and throughout Georgia was raw or unprocessed milk. By 1948 there were 11 dairy production plants in Atlanta and all the milk sold in the metro-Atlanta area was processed milk.
Southern Dairies became a division of the National Dairy Products Corporation in 1936. This company produced products such as cottage cheese and sour cream and acquired the Kraft-Phenix Cheese Corporation in 1930. Kraft operated as an independent subsidiary before being absorbed into the operating structure of the parent company, which changed its name to Kraftco Corporation in 1969 and again to Kraft, Inc. in 1976.
By the mid 1950s Atlanta Southern Dairies was the largest dairy in Georgia with branches in Macon, Columbus, and Rome.
Southern Dairies, Inc was best known for their ice cream – “The velvet kind of ice cream”
The plant operated until 1998.

Alien & Company from Chattanooga, Tennessee constructed the building in 1935 for the Southern Dairies Company.

The building is significant in the area of architecture as a good and intact example of a pre-World War II industrial building constructed in the Art Deco style.
There is a 1935 garage/engine house located to the east of the main building. After the 1956 renovations, this was used as an engine room.
The 1945 addition was constructed at a right angle to the original building
The much smaller 1951 addition was constructed at the main entrance on the west fagade of the building.
The character-defining exterior features include geometric brick pattern details, herringbone brick pattern details, symmetrical division of bays by pilasters, and large multi-paned metal windows. The interior features an open plan with exposed historic structural and new mechanical systems. These features considered Southern Dairies “modern” at the time.