Way back in the early days of Forks there were dairies and a creamery was located near the town center. Clallam County was once one of the major dairy farming regions in the State, but there are now only a few remaining commercial dairy farms in the County. It is believed that Luther Ford initiated the Forks dairy industry when he shipped a herd to Neah Bay and drove it down the beach to La Push and up to the homestead on the Forks Prairie.

By 1932 the west end was home to about half a dozen dairies, operated by many early settlers; Diimmell, Ford, Smith, Hillstrom, Palmer, Maxfield, and Mansfield just to name a few and the Forks Co-operative Creamery was located near the center of town. The Forks Creamery was eventually bought out by Angeles Creamery.

Prior to the west end getting electricity a creamery cooling tower was used in the processing of the dairy products. The tower once stood near the now demolished building. Another building once stood along what is now Spartan Avenue.

Both the tower and old building were eventually torn down and in 1968 the Forks branch of the Angeles Co-operative Creamery was constructed at the corner of Spartan and Calawah Way. When completed, by Del Guzzi Construction Company, the cinder block building provided office space and cold storage for frozen products. Milk products were stored in trailers next to the building. The cost of the expansion was $30,000.

Milk was once delivered to the customer’s door but over time the dairies disappeared and the Super Market began to be the place to purchase dairy products.

The old creamery building later became home to a number of other businesses; bakery/ice cream shop, appliance repair, video rental, a number of different eateries, insurance sales and probably more.

So what will become of the property? The property is owned by SD Partnership. Co-Owner Sheila Kenny said, “Dale and I are in the process of building a hamburger drive-thru. We are going to call it Benelli’s. We will serve hamburgers, chicken burgers, veggie burgers, and fish burgers, fries, milkshakes and pop.

Our goal is to serve quality burgers, reasonably priced and most importantly FAST. We are hoping to be up and running by August-September, but at this point there’s no way to know for certain.”