COLUMNISTS

A scoop on Yarnell’s

The hot weather turns my mind to ice cream-Yarnell’s, to be specific. I am so glad to see Yarnell’s back on the market. It would be a shame to lose Arkansas’ last commercial ice cream company, since ice and ice cream have been important to our cultural history. We like ice cream.

This has been the case since antebellum days, as observed by one Englishman traveling through Arkansas by stagecoach in 1860: “On reaching this town [Fort Smith], on the frontier of Arkansas and of civilization, we found every one holiday keeping, in honour of [the] ‘Fourth.’ We were allowed two hours delay-a very welcome opportunity for a bath and a leisurely dinner at a regular hotel. There we emerged on the comforts of ice-water and ice-cream, both such universal requirements of loyal American citizens in summer.”

I am amazed to be reminded of the great effort and cost our ancestors faced in keeping ice available during the torrid Arkansas summers. Although some Arkansans stored ice for the summer, most was probably imported via steamship from northern climes.

It is not surprising that every Arkansas town of any size availed itself of an ice plant as soon as the technology became available. Small town ice plants were often owned by local fuel merchants such as People’s Ice and Fuel Company of Little Rock in 1900.

With the advent of municipal gas companies, the market for coal and firewood declined in cities and small towns alike. At the same time the popularity of the home ice box meant that ice delivery vehicles became ubiquitous. Many ice plants diversified by opening ice cream operations. Likewise, some local “creameries,” as commercial dairies were then known, began ice cream production. By 1924 Arkansas was home to scores of ice cream plants, including Holland Company in Camden, Green Forest Cooperative Creamery Company and Liberty Ice Cream and Candy Company in Pine Bluff.

One of the more successful local brands was Grisham Ice Cream Company in Searcy. In 1927 Grisham consolidated with Terry Dairy Company of Little Rock, which had branches in Hot Springs and several other cities. The company was innovative, well-led, and had an aggressive salesman named Ray Yarnell. In 1929 the company began its first deliveries by truck, with its contents of 125 gallons of ice cream kept cold by the use of ice and salt.

The new delivery truck was on the road for only a few months before the national economy collapsed in October 1929. Grisham Ice Cream Company did not survive the Great Depression, and the company’s star salesman used his newfound unemployment to launch his own business, Yarnell Ice Cream Company, in 1933.

Albert Yarnell, son of founder Ray Yarnell, recalled the difficulty of building an ice cream business during the Depression, “There were days when the drivers left in the morning without enough gasoline to get back, and they had to sell enough ice cream to buy the fuel to get home.”In its early years Yarnell marketed ice cream in five-gallon tin containers. It was sold mostly to drug stores, which kept the ice cream in wooden chests. Albert Yarnell recalled that as a teenager he

had to stay up late on Saturdays in order to pack and load on a passenger bus the shipment for Thomas Drug Store in Parkin, with enough ice cream to satisfy the Sunday afternoon needs of that Cross County town.

When Albert served in World War II, Ray Yarnell had to persevere alone.The end of the war saw Albert return to the company as well as a boom in sales, which reached $390,000 in 1946. Ray expanded sales deeper into central and southern Arkansas and signed contracts with chain stores like Weingarten’s in Little Rock. In 1970 sales topped $1 million.

In recent years Ray’s son Rogers was president of Yarnell’s. In an attempt to compete better, Rogers instituted many innovations such as the introduction in 1990 of the Guilt Free line of fat-free products. The company made more than 100 flavors of ice cream as well as 300 other products, including frozen yogurt. Still, profits fell and by 2001, the company had to extend its loans. It ceased operations on June 30, 2011.

Fans of Yarnell’s ice cream were greatly relieved in January 2012 when Chicago-based Schulze & Burch Biscuit Co. acquired the company. Within three months Yarnell’s was back on store shelves. The new owners demonstrated their commitment to Yarnell’s by hiring a photogenic young man (“Scoop”) and sending him about the state in a beautifully refurbished vintage milk truck.

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Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living in western Pulaski County. Email him at Arktopic.[email protected].

Editorial, Pages 74 on 06/30/2013

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