June 2008 – The Guernsey Cow, Exton, Pennsylvania

Join in the West Chester Ice Cream Tattoo Quest Thurs June 26

The West Chester Guerilla Drive-In has teamed up with West Chester Dish to create a unique ice cream adventure in West Chester next Thursday evening. On June 26 at 6:30 PM, gather in front of the Chester County Courthouse The Lincoln Room around the corner from the Chester County Courthouse at 28 W. Market Street and receive an air-brushed ice cream tattoo and a scorecard.

Walk West Chester borough with friends, family or complete strangers to evaluate 5 different ice cream locations. Return to the Courthouse Lincoln Room when you are done (and had your fill of ice cream), hand in your completed scorecards and receive a flame tattoo to top off your ice cream tattoo. Your flaming cone will be the envy of all as you stroll the streets, beaches, and malls for days and show that you were able to eat ice cream in 5 locations in one evening AND rate them all.

Look for the vintage motorcycle with sidecar flying a banner resembling the flaming ice cream cone. For more details than you can shake a stick at, visit The Guerilla Drive-In Ice Cream Tattoo Quest page.

Chester County’s ice cream legacy is alive and well and having fun.

[update: I hope to be wearing my new Guernsey Cow Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream t-shirt, hot off the presses, for the quest. Get yours!]

Memorabilia: 1950s Postcard The Guernsey Cow Exton PA

The Guernsey Cow Exton postcard ca 1950s

This late 1950’s postcard of The Guernsey Cow is open for bids on eBay right now. The cars really give the postcard it’s ‘classic’ feel along with the 50 gallon drum trash can and oil stains in the parking spots.

[Update June 13: The final selling price for this postcard was $47.99! That’s the first time I’ve seen one of these go that high. Usually they end up less than $12.]

Before The Cow, there was The Exton Dairy Grille

from L to R: Gladys Polite, Millie “Dolly” Polite (Ilario’s sister), Elmer Polite (Ilario’s brother), Ilario “Larry” Polite

A few posts (and months) back I mentioned an upcoming visit with my grandmother, Gladys Polite. On that visit we spent several hours going over the photos, documents, menus and material she still had from her various collections over the years. I don’t know where she’s kept it all.

This photo is one that I don’t ever recall seeing before. It is The Guernsey Cow The Exton Dairy Grille, around 1931, before it was The Cow.

Before my grandfather, Ilario Polite, owned the business, it was known as Montcalm Farms. He worked there in 1927 busing tables, washing dishes, whatever was needed. At that time, around 1927, it was known as Montcalm Farms.

The following excerpt is from the “Statement of Significance” prepared by Estelle Cremers, Historical Land Research, when there was an effort to get The Guernsey Cow placed on the National Register of Historic Places:

…begun in 1927 by Fank B. Foster, president of the Congoleum Company in Philadelphia and a resident farmer in neighboring Charlestown Township, Chester County. Foster needed a retail outlet for milk from his several Guernsey dairy farms when summer quotas were instituted by Harbison Dairies, a bottling company in Philadelphia to whom many local farmers sold their product in bulk. To process his overflow. Mr. Foster set up a raw milk bottling operation in a small frame building on the farm he owned at Exton crossroads. Under his name of Montcalm Farms, it was essentially a retail outlet for his own bottled milk, but quickly branched into the sale of eggs and other farm products. Featured was made-on-the-spot ice cream, and cream caramels prepared by a German storekeeper nearby.

Later when my grandfather took on the business around 1931 it was known as the Exton Dairy Grille. Later, it became famous as The Guernsey Cow.

There’s plenty more history to be shared and we’ll get to that over time.