EveryMuseum.com - America's Ice Cream & Dairy Museum / Elm Farm

AMERICA's ICE CREAM & DAIRY MUSEUM housed at historic Elm Farm - A unique experience for the family; visitors are shown the history of ice cream in America through antiques, toys, dippers and collectibles. The dairy museum explains the history of the cow and milk process in America with cream separators, butter churns, dairy equipment, trucks, toys and milk bottles from northeast Ohio. Museum housed in original dairy building. A unique experience.

The Abell family arrived in America in 1630 and settled in the Connecticut and New York state area. In the 1830's, they came to northeast Ohio as part of the ‘Western Reserve Land Grant' and started a dairy. Their family business began by peddling milk door-to-door from a wagon in Cleveland.

The original farm began in the 1830's as a 100-acre dairy farm. In 1927, Henry Abell purchased the farm. When the Depression struck, he moved his family from Cleveland to Medina to develop the dairy farm, which grew to over 500 acres. In 1934 Henry Abell along with his family began Elm Farm Dairy. Elm Farm was the first to bring milk pasteurization to Medina County. Carl, age seven, alongside his father, Henry, began delivering milk door-to-door from the backseat of the family's 1926 Hupmobile. Elm Farm grew rapidly with the endorsement of local doctors as to the safety of their milk for children; over the years the dairy supplied five counties with milk. Elm Farm became the premier dairy in Medina County and was one of the last family' owned dairies in Northern Ohio, which closed in 1979. Today, the original dairy plant houses the museum, ice cream parlor and gift shop.