The Dairy King of the Northwest
How a Seattle entrepreneur consolidated the regional dairy market by centralizing production and expanding into international trade.
The house of John B. Agen, of Seattle, does the largest business in butter, cheese and eggs of any firm in the Northwest. Recently, this establishment moved into new quarters in the Colman building at Western Avenue and Marion Street. Not only is an extensive trade carried on with merchants in Seattle and Western Washington, but a heavy business has been built up with Alaska, China, and Japan. John B. Agen, who grew up on a New York dairy farm, arrived in Seattle in 1889, just after the Great Fire. By centralizing operations, Agen's facility now processes cream from dairies in Avon, Mt. Vernon, Yakima, and O'Brien, producing 2,000 pounds of butter daily with significant cost efficiencies. J. A. Woll, secretary of the Washington State Dairymen's Association, manages the plant's creamery and cold storage operations.
“The secret of the success of this method of conducting the business lays in the fact that our enlarged facilities enables us to make 2,000 pounds of butter daily with no more help... than to manufacture 200 pounds per day in the small creameries.”
This story captures the early industrialization of Washington's agricultural supply chain. The shift from small, local creameries to centralized, high-volume processing plants mirrors the ongoing tension between local food sovereignty and the globalized, corporate food systems that dominate the Pacific Northwest today.
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