The papers of the Lake to Lake Dairy Cooperative are arranged into three series: a brief history, minutebooks and scrapbooks.
The history is a short essay written by Albert Mueller, president of the Cooperative, entitled, “The How and Why of Lake to Lake,” covering the period from the cooperative's conception in 1945 to December 1965. The essay gives a brief history of the cooperative and an explanation of the organization and advantages of a dairy cooperative.
The minutebooks document the Cooperative's Board of Directors' meetings, annual meetings, resolutions committee meetings, and district delegate meetings from 1946-1960.
Seventy-three scrapbooks comprise the largest section of the collection. They are arranged by type and chronologically thereunder. Twelve advertisement scrapbooks contain the Cooperative's advertising from the 1950's to 1968, including both product wrappers and newspaper advertisements. Sixty-one news items' scrapbooks contain clippings and magazine articles pertaining to the Cooperative's business transactions, such as its mergers and purchases, and its general public relations from 1946 to 1976. Among topics discussed are a 1951 law suit naming Lake to Lake as responsible for the pollution of the Neshota River, which was eventually settled when the Cooperative and the village of Denmark jointly built a new sewage treatment plant; strike threats in 1958 and 1960 by the Teamsters, Local 619, which would have affected Lake to Lake; and a 1962-1963 dispute between the Cooperative and the National Farmers Organization over the value of withholding actions as a means to raise dairy prices. These scrapbooks also document the involvement of General Manager Truman Torgerson in the dairy industry in Wisconsin and in the nation.
