Creeping over fields of green Remembering the
faces The moments unseen The hands that built
a dynasty The vision in their eyes Echoes in
the auction bar Beneath an endless sky This is
the bull buy Turn the bar Welcome back to the
Bullvine Podcast. Today we are sharing a story
that, quite honestly, stopped us in our tracks.
It really did. Usually when we talk about dairy
history, we're looking at pedigrees or sire summaries
or, you know, the evolution of the bulk tank.
The chemical stuff, yeah. But today we're looking
at a specific moment in time, 1942, and a specific
operator who you absolutely know, but probably
not for her cows. And I'll say right off the
bat, this is the kind of conversation that reminds
you why you got into dairy in the first place.
It's about passion. It's about risk. And it's
about the harsh reality of the business. It's
not just a fluff piece. Exactly. We are talking
about Ginger Rogers. The Ginger Rogers. Yes.
The dancer. The Academy Award winner. The woman
who did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards
and in high heels. An absolute legend. But today
we aren't talking about the films. We're talking
about... the for our dairy because the twist
here isn't that a celebrity bought a farm we
see that all the time the twist is that she wasn't
just posing for photos she was a producer and
that distinction is everything we see it all
the time right someone with money buys a ranch
throws a few cows on it for the tax write -off
and calls it a day right it's a backdrop for
their instagram exactly that is not what happened
here this is a story about infrastructure genetics
and a military contract so let's set the scene
I want to take you back to March 2, 1942. You
walk past a newsstand and you see Life Magazine.
Ginger Rogers is on the cover. Okay. Now, in
1942, she is arguably the biggest star in the
world. She just won the Oscar for Kitty Foyle
a year earlier, beating Katharine Hepburn. She's
RKO's hottest commodity. So you're expecting
glamour. You're expecting a ballroom gown sequin.
Or maybe her mid -pirouette with Fred Astaire.
Something. You know, Hollywood. That's not the
photo. It's not. She is standing on the banks
of a river in southern Oregon. She's wearing
fishing gear. She's got a rod in her hand. She
looks capable. Capable. That's a good word. Not
posed. Like she actually knows how to use that
thing. Exactly. And when you open the magazine,
the spread inside is even more surprising. There's
a photo of her up on the roof of a ranch house,
just looking out over a thousand acres. A thousand
acres. A thousand. There's another one of her
feeding wildflowers to a cow. And then there's
this. Beautiful shot of her leaning against a
fence rail with her mother, Layla, just watching
the cattle at dinnertime. That fence rail moment,
that's the universal language of farming right
there. It is, isn't it? I don't care if you're
in Hollywood or Wisconsin, leaning on a fence,
watching the herd eat. That is the payoff. That's
the moment of peace. But there was this tension
right from the start, this outsider tension.
Because as beautiful as those photos were. The
agricultural community in Oregon wasn't exactly
rolling out the red carpet. Oh, no. We thought
it was a joke. Oh, absolutely. And honestly,
I get it. I've seen it. You have city folks come
in. They buy up prime land and the locals just
roll their eyes and they think give it two winters,
they'll be gone. There's a proving ground you
have to go through. And it wasn't just quiet
skepticism. It was. It was out in the open. There's
this specific story about Dr. W .H. Little from
the Oregon State Department of Agriculture. Okay,
so this is an official. This is an official.
He made a comment that I think sums it all up
perfectly. He was talking to another actor, Eugene
Pallett, who actually was a serious rancher,
and he cracked a joke about Ginger Rogers. Uh
-oh. He said her livestock would probably consist
of nothing but bees. Nothing but bees. Wow. Can
you imagine? That stings, pun intended, but...
Think about the weight of that. It's not just
dismissive. It's insulting. It is. It implies
she doesn't know the difference between a cow
and an insect or that she's just going to have
a little hobby garden. It's that deep -seated
skepticism farmers have for anyone who hasn't
sweated through a harvest yet. Right. The assumption
is failure. The assumption is boredom. That she'll
get tired of the mud and go back to the spotlight.
And that she's not. Serious. It's all for show.
But Layla Rogers, her mother. She was not having
it. I get the feeling she didn't take criticism
lightly. Not at all. Yeah. She fired back immediately.
She wrote a letter. And it wasn't a polite, oh,
we love the country kind of note. It was factual.
She listed their brand registration. She listed
the breed of cattle. It was a business response.
Putting them on notice. We've done our homework.
And Ginger herself shut it down even harder.
A reporter asked her, point blank, do you really
expect this ranch to pay? The big question. And
her answer is fascinating. She said, you're joking,
aren't you? Why, darn it. I am making it pay.
That ranch is no hobby with me. Darn it. I love
that. There's real fire there. She's annoyed
that she even has to answer that. She is. But
then she said the word that I think is the key
to this whole story. Yeah. The reason she was
doing it. She called the farm insurance. Insurance.
It's my insurance. And when I'm through in films,
I'm going up there to live. Okay. That changes
everything. It does. Right. Why would a movie
star? at the height of her power, needed dairy
farm for insurance. Well, look at the context.
Studio contracts in the 40s were brutal. You
were property, essentially. The studio owned
your image. They told you what movies to make,
who to date. They could ruin you. And careers
ended overnight. One bad movie, one scandal,
or just getting too old, which in Hollywood could
mean you're 35 and you're done, the income stops.
Cold. So the farm wasn't a retreat from that
world. It was a defense against it. Exactly.
Land, livestock, milk production. The studio
can't repossess that. It's a tangible asset.
It's the philosophy that no matter what happens
in the fantasy world of movies, people still
need to eat. People still need milk. It's the
most grounded investment you can make. It wasn't
a hobby. It was a fortress. A fortress. I like
that. And she didn't build this fortress alone.
We have to talk about Layla Rogers. The mother.
She is not your typical stage mom. Not by a long
shot. Her resume is incredible. Layla was a powerhouse.
She'd been a newspaper reporter, a screenwriter.
She was a Marine Corps publicist during World
War I. Stop and think about that for a second.
I am. A female Marine Corps publicist in 1918.
Can you imagine the force of will that takes?
That is a tough, smart woman. She ran the entire
Rogers household like a corporation. She was
the CEO of Ginger Rogers Incorporated. So she's
bringing that business mind to the farm project.
100%. So in 1941, they buy these two parcels
in the Rogue River Valley, Eagle Point, Shady
Cove area, combines to about 850 acres initially,
eventually growing to over 1 ,000. And a river
runs through it, literally. Literally the Rogue
River, which is crucial for the layout. Yeah,
that's a huge asset. It lets you separate things.
Which they did. They put the purebred Angus beef
cattle on the East Bank and the ultramodern dairy
on the West Bank. They separated the operations
physically, which is just smart management. It
was good biosecurity even back then. Keeps the
herd separate. Smart. And Layla goes to the Medford
Mail Tribune and she lays out the business plan.
She's not shy about it. She says, quote, we will
have possibly 50 dairy cows and as many blooded
cattle as the ranch will accommodate. Blooded
cattle. I love that term. It's so evocative.
It is. It's an old school term for purebreds.
It signals they aren't just buying scrub cows
at the local auction. They are building a genetic
base. This is a long -term plan. Which brings
us to the big decision. The breed choice. Ah,
yeah. This is where I need you to break it down.
In the 1940s, what was the landscape? And why
on earth... Did she choose Guernseys? This is
one of the most interesting parts of the whole
story for me because it shows their stratagem.
By the 1940s, Holsteins were already the volume
leaders. No question. The black and whites. The
black and whites. If you wanted to just fill
the tank and make money on volume, that's what
you got. Or if you wanted a family cow, maybe
you got a jersey for the high butterfat in a
small package. But she went for Guernseys, the
fawn and white cows. She went specifically for
Guernseys. And it wasn't the easy choice. Well,
they produce less volume than a Holstein. But
she wasn't chasing volume. She wanted golden
Guernsey milk. That was the actual trademark.
It was a brand. It was a brand from the start.
It was about quality over quantity. Guernsey
milk has that rich golden color because the cows
don't convert beta carotene into vitamin A as
efficiently as other breeds. So the beta carotene
passes right into the milk, giving it that color.
So it looks richer. It looks richer, and it is
richer. It's high butterfat, usually over 4 .5%.
High protein. She wasn't trying to be a commodity
producer. She was trying to be a premium producer
from day one. And where did she get these premium
cows? She went to the best sources in the region.
She bought from herds in Skagit County, Washington,
and Tillamook, Oregon. These were areas known
for top -tier Guernsey genetics. So she's paying
top dollar. You bet she is. She's buying the
foundation for a blooded herd. And crucially,
she joined the American Guernsey Cattle Club.
Okay, what does that signify to a farmer? It
means you're serious. It means you're all in.
You aren't just milking cows. You are registering
calves. You are tracking bloodlines. You are
paying dues to an association to be part of the
breed improvement on a national level. That's
a commitment. It's the difference between driving
a car and being a mechanic who builds the engine.
She was committing to the genetics of the breed.
So she has the land, she has the cows, the vision
is there. Now she needs the facility. And this
is where the story shifts from nice idea to commercial
reality. Yeah, this is where the money gets spent.
Because you've seen the specs on what she built.
This wasn't a rustic red barn with a dirt floor.
No. Not even close. This is state of the art
for 1942. She built a 12 cow milking parlor.
Which sounds small now, but for them. For a new
operation, that's a serious parlor. Yeah. But
here's the kicker. She installed electric milkers.
Was that where? It wasn't unheard of, but it
was a major investment. Hand milking was still
very, very common, especially for smaller herds
of, you know, 30 to 50 cows. Putting in electric
machines means you're looking for efficiency,
consistency, and sanitation. It was a long -term
play. It's a massive long -term play. She also
had a 40 -cow feeding barn, a 150 -ton corn silage
silo, and a haykeeper for 100 tons. These are
commercial capacities. This isn't a hobby farm
setup. But there's one detail in the infrastructure
that when you first read it, you said it changed
your whole perspective on her. It did. The hospital
barn. Explain that. She built a dedicated eight
stall building, a separate building, specifically
for fresh cows, cows that just calved, and for
sick cows. Why does that matter so much? Because
a hobbyist doesn't think about the sick cow until
she's sick. A professional anticipates it. Building
a quarantine zone, a place for recovery, shows
she understood biosecurity. It shows she understood
animal welfare. It shows she knew that to keep
the main herd healthy and the milk ratings high,
you have to separate the animals that aren't
100%. It's proactive, not reactive. That's it,
exactly. That one detail convinced me she was
more serious than anything else. That's a pro
move. So she's got the land, the cows, the state
-of -the -art facilities. She's all set up. But
then... The world changes. Romantically. It's
January 1942. The United States is fully in World
War II now. And nine miles from her front gate,
something happens that changes her entire business
model overnight. Camp. The U .S. Army decides
to build a massive training camp in the Agate
Desert. And when we say camp, we're underselling
it. They built a city. A whole city. In six months,
1 ,300 buildings, roads, sewers, a hospital,
everything. The scale is just staggering. 40
,000 soldiers stationed there at its peak. Over
100 ,000 men processed through it in just a few
years. Imagine a city of 40 ,000 young men appearing
out of nowhere, nine miles down the road from
your brand new dairy. And what do 40 ,000 young
active men need every single day? They need calories.
Lots of them. And specifically, the Army wanted
milk. Good, safe, fluid milk. This created an
instant massive market vacuum in Southern Oregon.
An incredible opportunity. You have this massive
guaranteed demand and very little local supply
that can meet the Army standards. And the 4R
dairy, with its brand new parlor and electric
milkers. Was perfectly positioned. They stepped
right into that. They secured a contract to supply
the military. This is the turning point. This
is where it goes from insurance to war effort.
From a personal project to a national one. But
I want to talk about what this actually looked
like for her. Because remember, she's still Ginger
Rogers. She's not retired. She's filming Roxy
Hart. She is the biggest star at RKO Studios.
So she's living a double life. A completely double
life. And she's commuting. That's a heck of a
commute. 15 hours. That's the drive time from
Hollywood to Medford in 1942. On 1940s roads.
In 1940s cars. No interstate. Think about that.
That's not a weekend trip. That is a trek. And
she did it constantly. Even when gas rationing
kicked in during the war, she kept coming. That's
dedication. You don't do that for a hobby. Now,
she was clear. She admitted she wasn't doing
the heavy plowing. She had hired crews for that.
But she was there. She was present. She was on
the roof, climbing the silo, overseeing things.
And the dairy was pumping. It was. Let's do the
napkin math on this because I love seeing if
the numbers hold up. It tells you if the story
is real. Go for it. So the records say she was
shipping about 150 gallons of milk per day to
Camp White. Okay. She had about 32 cows milking
at her peak. A gallon of milk is roughly 8 .6
pounds. So 150 gallons is, let's see, just under
1 ,300. pounds of milk a day. Okay, 1 ,300 pounds.
You divide that by 32 cows and you get about
40 to 41 pounds of milk per cow per day. And
what does that number tell you? Is that good?
We're Guernseys. In 1942, that is solid, honest
production. That is really good. Remember, Guernseys
aren't volume cows like Holsteins. Getting 40
pounds a day of high component premium milk is
excellent. What does it prove? It proves the
cows were well fed, they were comfortable, the
genetics were good, and the electric milkers
were doing their job efficiently. She wasn't
faking those numbers. That's a real working dairy.
And the quality had to be there too, right? Yeah.
This isn't just selling to the corner store.
It's a military contract. No, the army doesn't
mess around with food safety, especially not
then. They check bacteria counts religiously.
If your milk is dirty, if your somatic cell count
is high, they reject it, period. So all that
infrastructure. The hospital barn, the easily
cleanable parlor, those electric milkers. It
wasn't for show. It was necessary to meet the
quality standard for that contract. The fact
that she held that contract means her sanitation
was top notch. And she branded it. This is the
part that I love that speaks to the Hollywood
side of her. Yeah. She had custom glass bottles
made. You can still find them sometimes. Embossed
to ragless. What's up? And they said Golden Guernsey.
Trademark. America's table milk. America's table
milk. That's brilliant. Isn't it? She understood
branding before branding was a buzzword. She
wasn't selling milk. She was selling a story.
She was selling patriotism. She was selling quality.
But here's the conflict. Okay. And it's the,
well, it's the tragedy of this specific deep
dive. The war provided the customer camp white.
But the war also took the one thing she couldn't
replace. The labor. The great paradox of the
war economy. It's the story of agriculture across
the entire country in the 1940s. All the young
men, the guys who would be running the milking
machines, bucking hay, moving irrigation pipe,
they were gone. Where did they go? They were
either drafted and sent to the Pacific Theater
or they went to the cities like Portland to build
Liberty ships in the shipyards because the war
industry was paying wages a farm could never,
ever match. So Ginger Rogers, the movie star
with all their money. Could not compete with
the war economy. No farm could. It's a fundamental
economic reality. You can have the best barn,
the best cows and the best contract in the world.
But if you don't have the hands to put the cups
on the cows at four in the morning. You're dead
in the water. Completely. I want you, our listeners,
to just imagine that moment. It's 1943. You've
been doing this for two years. You've proven
everyone wrong. You've silenced the nothing but
bees crowd. You're making it pay. But it's two
in the morning and you literally cannot find
anyone to help you milk. That is a panic that
hits you in the gut. Because when the cows need
to be milked, they need to be milked. Right.
It's a biological imperative. You can't put it
on hold. You can't say, we'll get to it next
week when we hire someone. The cows are standing
there full of milk, uncomfortable. You have to
do it. So she had to make the hard decision.
The hardest decision a farmer can make. She dispersed
the herd. Around 1943, barely two years in, the
Guernseys were sold. The parlor went quiet. The
bulk tank went dry. All that investment, all
that work. just stopped. It feels like a failure,
doesn't it? Yeah. When you say it like that.
It feels like heartbreak because she did everything
right. She told reporters, darn it, I am making
it pay. She was defensive about it because she
knew she had cracked the code. She had a profitable
dairy. But you can't fight history. No. Macroeconomics
killed it. It wasn't bad management. It was history
running right over her business plan. But this
is where the story pivots for me. Because a tourist,
someone who was just there for the image, for
the Life magazine spread. Would have sold the
land right then. Absolutely. The cows are gone.
The experiment failed. Time to cut your losses
and go back to Beverly Hills. But she didn't
leave. She kept the thousand acres. And she kept
the Angus beef cattle. Right. Why was that different?
They're so much less labor intensive. You don't
have to milk an Angus cow twice a day, 365 days
a year. They raise their own calves out on pasture.
It's a completely different management style
that you can run with a skeleton crew. So she
adapted. She didn't quit. She adapted. And she
kept living there. She became a local. The stories
are amazing. There are stories of her fishing
the Rogue River. There's a famous local fishing
guide, Glenn Wooldridge, who said she was one
of the best guests he ever had on the river.
She wasn't afraid to get dirty, to handle the
boat. And there's that photo, I think we've both
seen it online, of her climbing her own silo.
Yes. I love that picture. She's just scaling
this concrete ladder up the side of her 150 ton
silo. No safety harness, just in her work clothes,
climbing up to check the feed or maybe just look
at the view. That is ownership. That is not an
actress playing a role. And she held that land
for 50 years. 50. That's incredible. She didn't
sell the last pieces until 1990. So she outlasted
the studio system that she is insuring herself
against. She outlasted most of her film career.
The land really was her insurance and it paid
off. And she integrated into the community. She
wasn't Hollywood to the people in Eagle Point
and Medford. She was a neighbor. She helped restore
the Criterion Theater in Medford, which is the
place where she actually danced as a teenager
on a vaudeville tour. Wow. Full circle. Full
circle. Yeah. And where her movie, Roxy Hart,
had its local premiere. After she died, they
renamed it the Criterion Ginger Rogers Theater.
That's a legacy that goes way beyond just being
a famous face. That's putting down roots. That's
real. But I want to loop back to the cows. Because
there is a ripple effect here. A modern chapter
that Ginger Rogers never lived to see, but she
was eerily prophetic about. The golden Guernsey
bet. Exactly. We talked about how she chose Guernseys
for the color and the butterfat, but she also
chose them for something she couldn't possibly
have known about in 1941. The A2 protein. Okay,
explain this for the listeners who might see
A2 milk in the grocery store and don't really
know the science behind it. Sure. So, very simply,
milk contains different types of proteins. One
of the main ones is beta -casein. Historically,
thousands of years ago all cows produced only
the a2 type of this protein the original milk
protein the original over time a natural mutation
occurred in some european herds mostly in what
became the holstein breed that created the a1
protein for a lot of people it makes no difference
but for some The way their body breaks down that
A1 protein can cause inflammation or digestive
discomfort. And A2 is different. A2 is the original,
more easily digestible form for many people.
It's the protein structure our bodies were sort
of originally accustomed to. And Guernseys. Guernseys,
because they come from a more isolated genetic
pool from the Isle of Guernsey, they practically
stayed pure A2. Today, science tells us over
80 % of registered Guernseys are genetically
A2A2, and 100 % of the AI sires, the bulls used
for breeding, are tested and confirmed A2A2.
So when Ginger Rogers went to Skagit County and
bought those foundation cows in 1941... She was
buying an A2 herd without even knowing it. She
didn't have a genomic test. She didn't know what
a beta casein was. But her instinct for quality
and golden milk led her to the breed that...
80 years later, would be leading a niche market
projected to hit $7 billion. She was 80 years
early to the wellness trend. She absolutely was.
And if you look at modern farming, especially
artisan dairy, there are people doing exactly
what she tried to do. Let's talk about those
modern parallels because this is where the story
gets so relevant. We see this model working now.
Right. Look at a place like Promise Valley Farm
on Vancouver Island. Mark and Caroline Noctegal.
They were milking Holsteins the conventional
way, and they were struggling to make ends meet.
I think a lot of people listening can relate
to that. Absolutely. So they switched. They sold
the Holsteins and went to a 100 % A2H Guernsey
herd. Now they process everything on farm. They
make yogurt. They sell milk in glass bottles.
Glass bottles. Just like ginger. They're telling
a story about quality, about a specific kind
of milk, and they're thriving. That's incredible.
And then there's Pleasant Meadow Creamery down
in Idaho. Paul Herndon. He does raw milk direct
-to -consumer. His whole business model is built
on the Guernsey difference. People drive for
miles to his farm because they want that golden,
high -fat, A2 milk for their family. It's the
complete vindication of Ginger's business plan.
It is. She had the right idea. Premium, story
-driven, high -component micro dairy. She just
had the terrible luck of trying to launch it
during World War II. The model works. She just
couldn't get the labor to sustain it through
that specific historical moment. Right. Someone
is listening to this on their tractor right now.
They've heard about the electric milkers, the
Oscar winner, the bees joke. What is the one
thing from the story they should sit with today?
For me, it comes down to the value of differentiation.
Ginger Rogers refused to be a commodity producer.
She didn't just want to sell milk. She wanted
to sell Golden Guernsey America's table milk.
She picked a specific breed for a specific product
with a specific story. Even 80 years ago, she
understood that if you are small, you have to
be special. You can't just be a line item. You
can't. You can't compete on volume against the
big guys, but you can always beat them on quality
and story. That's powerful. Be special or be
gone. And the second thing, and it's a tougher
one, is a reality check on labor. Yeah. You can
have the best infrastructure in the world, the
hospital barn, the silo, the money, but it all
fails without the hands to run it. It's a reminder
that labor is the most fragile, most critical
part of the entire dairy ecosystem. It was true
in 1943, and it is more true today than ever.
And I'd add one more, which is something we touched
on at the beginning. Respect the outsider. Yeah,
that's a good one. Sometimes the person with
fresh eyes, the person looking for insurance
instead of just doing what we've always done,
sees the value in a breed or a method that the
industry has moved away from. The experts laughed
at her guernseys. The guy from the Department
of Ag thought she'd have bees. But she was sitting
on a goldmine of A2 genetics and a business model
that was decades ahead of its time. That's a
humbling thought. The city slicker might actually
be on to something. We should probably listen
more. As we wrap up, I just keep thinking about
that image from Life magazine. Yeah. Ginger and
her mom, Layla, at the fence rail. Two incredibly
strong women, mother and daughter, united by
the land. Yeah. And the fact that those milk
bottles still exist. You can go to a museum in
Independence, Missouri, and see one. It's a real
object. America's table milk. It's a physical
piece of proof. She did it. For a short time,
against all odds, she really, truly did it. That's
another story from The Bullvine Podcast. These
are the people building the future of dairy,
even the ones from the past. Find more at www
.thebullvine .com. Subscribe so you don't miss
the next story. Thanks for listening. Never will
die From the show ring Thunder to The quiet strength
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