Excelsior Creamery Company Records
Finding aid created by Sherman Library and Gardens staff using RecordEXPRESS
Sherman Library and Gardens
614 Dahlia Ave.
Corona del Mar, California 92625
(949) 673-1880
paul@slgardens.org
http://www.slgardens.org/
2017
Descriptive Summary
Title: Excelsior Creamery Company Records
Dates: 1914-2002
Collection Number: 2006_04
Creator/Collector:
Excelsior Creamery Company (Santa Ana, Calif.)
Excelsior Farms (Norco, Calif.)
Excelsior Ranch Company (Santa Ana, Calif.)
Extent: 7 document boxes and 3 flat oversize boxes.
Repository:
Sherman Library and Gardens
Corona del Mar, California 92625
Abstract: The collection consists of the business records (including correspondence, financial records, publications, legal documents
and other materials) of the Excelsior Creamery Company and its affiliated organizations, the Excelsior Ranch Company and Excelsior
Farms. A sizeable amount of financial records in the collection between 1925-1966 show various annual and monthly profit
and loss figures and balance statements for the company and record its growth over the years. There are materials regarding
a few other Orange County area dairies acquired by the company and an extensive amount of land records which indicate the
extensive amount of property acquired by the Excelsior Creamery over the years.
Language of Material: English
Access
Collection is open for research.
Preferred Citation
Excelsior Creamery Company Records. Sherman Library and Gardens
Acquisition Information
The collection was donated to the Sherman Library by Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Ranney in 1981.
Biography/Administrative History
Walter Daniel Ranney (1875-1949), his wife, Florence Knettles Wycoff Ranney (1877-1949), and their four children moved from
Groton, New York, to Santa Ana, California in 1913. That same year W. D. Ranney established the Ranney Sanitary Dairy. In
1915, he and Charles F. Heil bought the Excelsior Dairy, which Henry Russell and E. D. Burns opened in Santa Ana earlier that
year. W. D. Ranney’s brother, Joseph A. Ranney, moved from New York to also join in the business, and in 1917 the name of
the company changed to Excelsior Creamery. In 1920 they purchased Taylor’s Ice Cream Factory in Santa Ana and entered the
ice cream business, selling Excelsior ice cream in chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavors. In 1922 the Excelsior Creamery
opened its $150,000 three-story complex on East First Street in Santa Ana. The Excelsior Creamery was the first in Orange
County, California, to use the milk pasteurization process and to offer frozen orange juice for sale.
In the 1920s they leased pasture land for the creamery’s cows in Round Valley, California, near Bishop, and in 1922 they purchased
400 acres to accommodate milk cows at Prado, California, just west of Corona. The Excelsior Ranch Company, created in 1930,
separated the farming operations and dairy from the creamery, and in 1937 they purchased 100 acres of property in Garden Grove
along with the cows and the dairy operations from Raitt’s Dairy (Orange County’s first dairy farm, which began operations
in 1896). Following the Santa Ana River Flood of 1938, their Prado property was acquired through eminent domain by the government
in order to build what became the Prado Dam, and afterwards all their dairy farming operations continued at what grew to be
the 240 acre Seventeenth Street ranch in Garden Grove. The Excelsior Ranch Company dissolved in the early 1950s, the Garden
Grove property was sold for the development of homes in 1953, and in 1957 Excelsior Farms was created and began cattle ranching
in Norco, California.
Upon its sale to the Los Angeles-based Carnation Company in 1980, the Excelsior Creamery’s sixty-five year dairy industry
business came to an end.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection consists of the business records (including correspondence, financial records, publications, legal documents
and other materials) of the Excelsior Creamery Company and its affiliated organizations, the Excelsior Ranch Company and Excelsior
Farms. A sizeable amount of financial records in the collection between 1925-1966 show various annual and monthly profit
and loss figures and balance statements for the company and record its growth over the years. There are materials regarding
a few other Orange County area dairies acquired by the company and an extensive amount of land records which indicate the
extensive amount of property acquired by the Excelsior Creamery over the years.
Of particular note in the collection is the large body of materials which document the regulations and restrictions placed
on manufacturers, supplies and food products during World War II. There are official publications from the United States
Office of War Information and the Department of Agriculture regarding the rationing of sugar and automobile fuel and tires,
and there are also contracts and related documentation regarding Excelsior Creamery’s role as the supplier of dairy products
for Orange County area military bases during the war. There are also some materials from this same era which record early
attempts to use refrigerated ice cream trucks to deliver and distribute frozen foods.
Other interesting materials in the collection include documents regarding the various types of containers for milk delivery,
advertisements for Excelsior Creamery products and for Family Brick ice cream, and a large amount of company stock certificates.
There are a few recipes in the collection related to the use of chocolate and cocoa to make chocolate milk and chocolate malted
beverages, and it appears that at one time the Excelsior Creamery had a cocoa mix which they sold to other dairies with which
they could create chocolate milk.
The collection also contains materials related to the dairy, livestock and grazing activities of the Excelsior Creamery Company
and its affiliated organizations, the Excelsior Ranch Company and Excelsior Farms. There is some material concerning their
grazing activities on leased land in California’s Owens Valley, but there is more documentation concerning their Garden Grove
ranch. There is a small amount of material concerning the condemnation of their grazing property in the vicinity of what
became the Prado Dam following the destructive Santa Ana River Flood of 1938.
Indexing Terms
Dairies - California - Orange County - History - 20th century - Sources
Ranches - California - Orange County - History - 20th century.
Santa Ana (Calif.)
Norco (Calif.)
Business records - California - Orange County - 20th century.
Additional collection guides
Box:Folder 1:1
California. Secretary of State - Certification of the Articles of Incorporation
1920
Box:Folder 1:2
Articles of incorporation - Amendment regarding capitol stock
1928-1929
Box:Folder 1:3
By-laws and minutes (bound volume)
1920-1923
Box:Folder 1:4
Minutes (bound volume)
1924-1950
Box:Folder 2:1
Appraisal report [2 copies]
1945
Box:Folder 2:2
Buildings - Manufacturing specifications
1922
Box:Folder 2:3
California. Railroad Commission
1937
Box:Folder 2:4
Excelsior Ranch Company, Ltd. - Alfalfa hay
1942
Box:Folder 2:5
Excelsior Ranch Company, Ltd. - Legal files regarding Prado Dam condemnation suit
1940-1943
Box:Folder 2:6
Fullerton sanitary creamery (Fullerton, Calif.) - Purchase records
1920-1926
Box:Folder 2:7
Gertrude S. Wilson v. Jackson Ice Cream Company...and Excelsior Creamery Company
1935
Box:Folder 2:9
Katayama v. Excelsior Creamery Company
1933
Box:Folder 2:10
Indenture - Dissolution of property
1922
Box:Folder 2:12
Land records - Fullerton, Calif.
1939
Box:Folder 2:23
Land records - Orange, Calif.
1929-1960
Box:Folder 2:24
Land records - Orange County, Calif.
1924, 1929
Box:Folder 2:25
Land records - Paid mortgages
1917-1930
Box:Folder 2:26
Land records - Rincon, Calif.
1925-1926
Box:Folder 2:27
Land records - Santa Ana, Calif.
1914-1953
Box:Folder 2:28
Land records - Santa Ana, Calif. - “French’s Addition”
1921-1966
Box:Folder 2:29
Notes charged to bad debts
1920-1927
Box:Folder 2:30
Registration - Ranney’s Ice Cream
1949
Box:Folder 2:31
Sale and purchase records
1925-1932
Box:Folder 2:32
Standard Brands Incorporated
1938
Box:Folder 3:2
Advertisements - Excelsior Creamery Co.
1922-1980,
Box:Folder 3:3
Advertisements - Ice cream
1923-1924
Box:Folder 3:4
Alcohol permit record
1925-1934
Box:Folder 3:5
Aliso Dairy Company (Paularino, Calif.)
1915
Box:Folder 3:6
Anaheim Creamery Co. (Anaheim, Calif.)
1926, 1933
Box:Folder 3:7
Anderson, Roice and Leland Spencer. Ways of Conserving Tiresand Reducing other Expenses in the Distribution of Milk [report]
[1941]
Box:Folder 3:8
Automobile costs
1925-1942
Box:Folder 3:9
Bacteria counting
1929-1939
Box:Folder 3:10
Bottles, jars and glass containers
1925-1943
Box:Folder 3:12
California. Dept. of Agriculture
1941-1943
Box:Folder 3:14
Chocolate and cocoa - Correspondence
1929-1942
Box:Folder 3:15
Chocolate and cocoa - Notes and ephemera
1937-1948
Box:Folder 3:16
Chocolate and cocoa - Recipes
1948
Box:Folder 3:20
Correspondence - General
1940-1945
Box:Folder 3:21
Dairy and ice cream industries
1942-1943
Box:Folder 3:22
Dairy Institute of California - Newsletter
1942-1943
Box:Folder 3:23
Dairy supplies to military bases
1942-1943
Box:Folder 4:3
Federal briefs, statements and legislation affecting the dairy industry
1941-1943
Box:Folder 4:5
Fertilizers - Ephemera
1929-1936
Box:Folder 4:6
Frozen foods distribution
1930, 1949
Box:Folder 4:7
Frozen foods distribution - Correspondence
1937-1945
Box:Folder 4:8
Frozen foods distribution - Invoices, contracts and forms
1941-1943
Box:Folder 4:9
Frozen foods distribution - Prices
1936-1943
Box:Folder 4:10
Frozen foods distribution - Ephemera
1942
Box:Folder 4:11
Frozen foods distribution - Clippings
1930, 1942
Box:Folder 4:12
General Dairy Industry Committee - Newsletter
1942-1943
Box:Folder 4:15
Los Angeles (Calif.). Dept. of Water and Power - Land lease
1942
Box:Folder 4:16
Machinery and equipment
1942-1943
Box:Folder 4:17
Marshall, John, Jr. Cost of Production of Market Milk forLos Angeles [report]
1934
Box:Folder 4:18
Milk - Cartons
1942, 1948
Box:Folder 4:20
Milk - Certification - Pamphlets
Box:Folder 4:26
Sugar - Correspondence
1942-1943
Box:Folder 4:27
Sugar - Purchase certificates
1942-1943
Box:Folder 4:28
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture - Food distribution orders
1943
Box:Folder 4:29
U.S. Office of War Information. Office of Price Administration
1942-1943
Box:Folder 4:30
U.S. Office of War Information. War Production Board
1942-1949
Box:Folder 4:31
U.S. War Production Board. Division of Industry Operations
1942-1943
Box:Folder 5:1
Financial records - 1925
1925
Box:Folder 5:2
Financial records - 1926
1926
Box:Folder 5:3
Financial records - 1927
1927
Box:Folder 5:4
Financial records - 1928
1928
Box:Folder 5:5
Financial records - 1929
1929
Box:Folder 5:6
Financial records - 1930
1930
Box:Folder 5:7
Financial records - 1931
1931
Box:Folder 5:8
Financial records - 1932
1932
Box:Folder 5:9
Financial records - 1933
1933
Box:Folder 5:10
Financial records - 1935
1935
Box:Folder 5:11
Financial records - 1936
1936
Box:Folder 5:12
Financial records - 1937
1937
Box:Folder 5:13
Financial records - 1938
1938
Box:Folder 5:14
Financial records - 1940
1940
Box:Folder 5:15
Financial records - 1941
1941
Box:Folder 5:16
Financial records - 1942
1942
Box:Folder 5:17
Financial records - 1950
1950
Box:Folder 5:18
Financial records - 1951
1951
Box:Folder 5:19
Financial records - 1952
1952
Box:Folder 5:20
Financial records - 1953
1953
Box:Folder 5:21
Financial records - 1954
1954
Box:Folder 5:22
Financial records - 1955
1955
Box:Folder 5:23
Financial records - 1956
1956
Box:Folder 5:24
Financial records - 1957
1957
Box:Folder 5:25
Financial records - 1958
1958
Box:Folder 5:26
Financial records - 1959
1959
Box:Folder 5:27
Financial records - 1960
1960
Box:Folder 5:28
Financial records - 1961
1961
Box:Folder 5:29
Financial records - 1962
1962
Box:Folder 5:30
Financial records - 1963
1963
Box:Folder 5:31
Financial records - 1964
1964
Box:Folder 5:32
Financial records - 1965
1965
Box:Folder 5:33
Financial records - 1966
1966
Box:Folder 5:34
Financial records - Notes and charts
1926-1937
Box:Folder 5:35
Financial records - Taxes and licenses
1922-1948
Financial Records: Ledger Books
Box:Folder 6:0
Financial records - General ledger, 4/1/1921-8/31/1922
1921-1922
Box:Folder 6:0
Financial records - Depreciation record ledger, 1915-1935
1915-1935
Box:Folder 6:0
Financial records - Ledger, miscellaneous, 1914-1915, 1929, 1933-1938
1914-1938
Box:Folder 7:0
Financial records - General ledger, 1915-1916
1915-1916
Box:Folder 7:0
Financial records - General ledger, June 1915-March 1921
1915-1921
Financial Records: Stocks
Box:Folder 8:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock transactions record ledger
1915-1921
Box:Folder 8:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #100-197
1923-1930
Box:Folder 8:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #1-150
1930
Box:Folder 9:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #151-253
1930-1935
Box:Folder 9:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #254-402
1935-1955
Box:Folder 9:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #403-501
1955-1963
Box:Folder 10:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #502-525
1963-1966
Box:Folder 10:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #526-549
1966-1969
Box:Folder 10:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #550-575
1969-1970
Box:Folder 10:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #575-600
1970-1973
Box:Folder 10:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #601-625
1973-1977
Box:Folder 10:0
Financial records - Stocks - Stock certificate book, #626-725
1977-1979
Box:Folder 10:1
Santa Ana (Calif.) - Cultural Heritage Committee - Historical landmarks inventory form
1980
Box:Folder 10:2
Sullivan, Joan Ranney. A History of Excelsior Creamery Co., Excelsior Ranch Co., and Excelsior Farms.
2002
