Feb. 7th marks the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Babcock Dairy in Babcock Hall. It opened in 1951, and was officially dedicated on Feb. 7th, 1952. As Babcock Dairy prepares to celebrate 75 years as the historic UW-Madison owned and operated producer of premium ice cream and cheese , let’s take a look back at the history of the building, how it came to be, and where we are today.
Stephen M. Babcock, Inventor of the Butterfat Separator
Babcock with students, posing with the Butterfat Seperator, 1890Cheesemakers, 1900
Our namesake, Stephen M. Babcock arrived on campus in 1887, after working as a chemist and teacher in New York. He then completed research on butterfat and the dairy process, creating the Babcock Butterfat Test, publishing those findings in 1890, saving dairy farmers time, money, and resources by regulating the milk within the early stages of the dairying process. He established a classroom with two students in the very first dairying course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dairy School Outgrows Smith Hall
In 1892, Hiram Smith Hall became the nations first permanent dairy building and hosted the largest dairy class yet, with 75 students. After a career contributing to the improvement of the dairy industry, Babock then retired from the UW-Madison in 1913, however his lasting legacy was to put Wisconsin at the top of the United States diary industry, and it earned the title America’s Dairyland in 1920. Then came another invention in 1926, the batch freezer, that changed the way ice cream production could extend to commercial production on a much larger scale.
The UW Department of Husbandry was established in 1938, further contributing to the science of dairy production and regulation and expanding the understanding of consistency of dairy manufacturing. As the importance of dairy research, training, and the expansion of the industry in Wisconsin, the needs of the Dairy Science department at UW Madison grew in equal proportion. Smith Hall was becoming too small for the program or dairy production operations.
By 1945, Smith Hall was completely inadequate.
Dairy Professor Howard C. Jackson was fond of pointing out in the 1940s, “…there was a time when the University of Wisconsin had the finest dairy building in the world. But that time was 1893, when Hiram Smith Hall was built.” In addition to the problem of the dairy school outgrowing the space, Smith Hall’s antiquated construction and building materials were not up to food safety standards of mid-20th c. dairy operation.
Professor Jackson was a driving force advocating for a new structure. His vision and persistence were rewarded in 1945, when the state legislature approved funding for postwar University construction, including a new Dairy School building. Babcock Hall was built in 1949-1951 to replace the outmoded Hiram Smith Hall as the home of the dairy department. It contains instructional space and an entire working dairy plant that are still part of the footprint of Babcock Hall. While initially built for the needs of the post-war Dairy School, instructional and industrial needs continue to grow and expand even today. Babcock Hall was substantially enlarged in 1990, and the Babcock Dairy Plant underwent a complete reconstruction in 2022.
Construction of Babcock Hall, 1949-1951. The first batch freezer in the new building, at right.
The building went into use 75 years ago, in 1951, when the dairy department moved out of Hiram Smith Hall to the new Babcock Hall. The actual dedication ceremony happened on Feb. 7th the following year, what we now consider the Babcock Dairy’s “first birthday.”
