Date in History: 1885 – Present
Hoard’s Dairyman Magazine, the only national dairy magazine in the United States, has been published in downtown Fort Atkinson for the past 120 years. First issued by William Dempster Hoard as a supplement to the Jefferson County Union newspaper, the magazine made its debut as a stand-alone publication in 1885.
From the beginning, Hoard’s Dairyman was devoted to promoting high standards for the dairy industry and the using scientific advancements to achieve them. It was Hoard’s Dairyman that conducted the first ever cow census in the United States, worked to promote tuberculosis eradication, and publicized the nutrition value of milk. New ideas, such as the use of alfalfa for forage, and the storage benefits of the silo – a French invention – were first broadcast in the pages of Hoards.
Today, Hoards Dairyman Magazine is published in three languages and goes out to 82,000 subscribers in 75 countries around the world.
This historic document aired on the radio as an Historic Minute on 05/30/2005.