Box 2

The materials in the Stephenson County Pure Milk Association collection document the entire existence, 1928-1957, of a dairy cooperative based in Freeport, Illinois. Included in the collection are articles of incorporation, by-laws, minutes, 1931-1953; correspondence, 1944-1958. There are also legal contracts and membership agreements which span almost all the cooperative’s lifetime as a separate entity. Business records, ledgers, annual reports,... production records, marketing agreements are especially valuable from 1933 on and form an important part of the collection. While the collection contains all known existing records of the Stephenson cooperative, records from the earliest years are sometimes sparse; minutes from 1928-1931 (and 1953-1957) are missing, and correspondence before 1944 is generally nonexistent.