Were there horse drawn milk wagons in Detroit during the 1950's?

[cla1945]

When I was a baby, we had coal heat in our house in Brightmoor. It was a brand new house. I remember when it was converted to something in about 1950, I THINK natural gas, because we didn't seem to have an oil truck coming around. I don't remember the coal truck, but I am pretty sure it was a truck, not horse drawn. It had a chute that went into the house and very noisily and scarily dumped coal into the basement coal bin.

When our coal heating furnace was removed my grandfather replaced it with oil heat around the middle 50's. The coal truck was a truck, not horse drawn, and it was Koenig Coal. Awww, the memories of playing in the coal bin and my mother yelling at me to try to stay clean.

[jackie5275]

Not from the 50s, but shots of some earlier in town

http://apps.detroitnews.com/apps/mul...y.php?id=12532

[qsabe]

Late 50's the telephone company leased the old Twin Pines creamery over on Log Cabin near Six Mile as a vehicle storage garage. The horses were gone and the only heat in that big place was two coal room heaters. Green trucks replaced the milk trucks.

[DetroitPlanner]

When I was a baby, we had coal heat in our house in Brightmoor. It was a brand new house. I remember when it was converted to something in about 1950, I THINK natural gas, because we didn't seem to have an oil truck coming around. I don't remember the coal truck, but I am pretty sure it was a truck, not horse drawn. It had a chute that went into the house and very noisily and scarily dumped coal into the basement coal bin.

You must have lived in the Grosse Pointe Shores of Brightmoor. Most of the kids I went to school with lived either in homes built on slabs or crawls. I Had a friend who lived N of Fenkell and just W of Evergreen. When he wanted to impress folks he said he lived in Rosedale Park, when he wanted to be a badass he told them Brightmoor.

[daveyarm]

"......looks like a urban ghost town."

Really?? Did you know that Downtown, Corktown and Midtown have residential occupancy rates in the high 90% range?

[samtrak]

I don't know about Detroit's current occupancy rate but I vividly remember how Motown looked when I left in 1959 but that energy is long "Gone With the Wind". This past April when returning to the Motor City my daughter noted how the John Lodge Expressway to downtown was deserted on a Friday night.

"......looks like a urban ghost town."

Really?? Did you know that Downtown, Corktown and Midtown have residential occupancy rates in the high 90% range?

[terryh]

There are a few carriage houses still standing. One was remodeled into an upper and lower apt. behind a house in the Boston Edison district.

[oladub]

Hermod, You were right about Twin pines, Bordens, and Sealtest. I can't remember any others. Milky the clown advertised Twin Pines I think. His outfit was too creepy for me as a kid. There were also horse drawn junk wagons on rubbish day. We called them "cheney[[sp?) carts". At our house we had Sealtest milk and Cornilie[[sp?) Coal. There was also a Mistele Company distributing fuel on the east side.

[Hermod]

Hermod, You were right about Twin pines, Bordens, and Sealtest. I can't remember any others. Milky the clown advertised Twin Pines I think. His outfit was too creepy for me as a kid. There were also horse drawn junk wagons on rubbish day. We called them "cheney[[sp?) carts". At our house we had Sealtest milk and Cornilie[[sp?) Coal. There was also a Mistele Company distributing fuel on the east side.

The "sheeny" [[aka "ragpicker") with his horse and cart would come around before the trash pickup and look over what you had put out to see if you had any trash item that he could sell to a junkyard. The kids liked him for the horse and the grownups didn't mind him because he was always very careful not to leave a mess.

[Ferndalejohn]

Don't know about inside Detroit city limits but there was horse drawn delivery just north of 8 Mile Road in Ferndale well into the 1950s by Brown's Creamery. Lived on Gardendale and we always enjoyed the horses and friendly milkmen [[yes, all men then). Remember one horse in particular, a gray horse named "Farmer". In the summer we always pulled up grass we put in our open hands and carefully fed the horses. Also, on hot summer days, the milkman always was happy to chip off pieces from his big ice blocks if we had pieces of paper towels to hold it. I recall that the horses had all the delivery houses memorized and stopped in front of each.

[gazhekwe]

On Leslie near Woodrow Wilson, horse drawn milk wagon delivered to my Grandma's. I remember my baby sister, born in 1952, being old enough to carefully hold up a carrot for the horse.

Near the same time, we briefly had a horse drawn ice wagon on Lyndon in Brightmoor.

[preserve]

In southwest Detroit, we had Wayne Creamery with horses.