Field trips to Jessup Farms were educational for children

KATHERINE YAMADA

One of the most popular field trips for Glendale students in the

1950s and ‘60s was to Jessup Farms at San Fernando Road and Doran

Street. The students toured the dairy, had a picnic on the grass and,

if they were lucky, saw a calf being born.

“Kids came in school buses from all over,” said Rich Jessup,

grandson of Roger Jessup, the dairy’s founder. They walked through

the milking barn, saw the calves (their favorite part) and watched

the milk-bottling process through a window.

The tour leader, usually a hired hand, also took them through the

calving area.

“With that many cows on hand, there were births on a constant

basis and if students saw one, it always brought up lots of

questions,” he said.

Usually, Jessup said, the tour leader answered in general terms.

One day, a class came into the calving area just in time for a birth.

This time, Dr. Vince Jessup, Rich’s father, was on hand and he

answered with complete medical details.

“The teacher must have been having a heart attack. I heard that

story a thousand times,” Jessup said with a laugh.

After the tour, each child received a carton of milk and the

students gathered on the front lawn for milk and cookies. Everyone

went home with a book about the dairy and a membership in “Little

Brown Eyes Safety Club” after pledging to play safely.

In the late 1950s and early ‘60s, Jessup Farms built a series of

drive-in stores, 24 in all, throughout the San Fernando Valley.

“One still-intact building was just sold in Sunland. Glendale

alone had five. One of the most visible was #5 on Verdugo Road at

Honolulu [Avenue] in Montrose. Now, it’s an Italian restaurant,”

Jessup said.

Vern Bell built the drive-ins in a distinctive architectural

style.

“Quite modern for its day,” he added.

There were no convenience stores then and few large supermarkets,

so the drive-ins filled a need by selling all kinds of dairy

products, plus eggs, bread, soft drinks and coffee. Then, as markets

increased in size, Jessup said, the need for drive-ins slowed.

“I never kept any bottles, just some paper bottle tops,” Jessup

lamented, but recently he went on EBay and found half a dozen glass

bottles from the dairy his grandfather founded.

Roger Jessup died while Rich Jessup was at Hoover High School.

“My dad and the uncles took over,” he said.

Eventually, they moved the dairy to Bakersfield and sold the

Glendale property to Levitz and two other businesses.

“After Grandmother died, they began selling the other properties,”

he said.

* KATHERINE YAMADA’S column runs every other Saturday. To contact

her, call features editor Joyce Rudolph at 637-3241. For more

information on Glendale’s history visit the Glendale Historical

Society’s web page at www.glendalehistorical.org, call the reference

desk at the Central Library at 548-2027, or visit the Special

Collections Room at Central Library (open by appointment only).