The Milk Farm

This photo hasn't been seen in over 60 years. It shows what has been called Dixon's first Milk Farm on Sievers Rd. All newspaper articles back then don't mention Milk Farm but call the site "Cypress Camp Grove". There were cabins located behind the restaurant that were rented for overnight stays.

Karl A. Hess started the business on the old Highway 40 (Sievers Rd) in December 1926 and named the gas station Hess Service Station, and sold Richfield gas there. In the photo, it appears that the restaurant is attached to the station, and Ed Eggert, Henry Sievers, and Doc Wrigley seem to be enjoying a successful pheasant hunt. The cypress in this photo appears to still be there today in 2025.

The first time the name "Milk Farm" appeared in any Tribune was in 1941, when Hess relocated everything to the new Highway 40 site, which ran straight from Davis, CA, to Currey Road. With the State running out of funds that year and WWII just starting, the rest of HWY 40 was not completed to Midways Rd. until 1947.

Bill Schroeder

Photo found by Denise McBride in her cousin's house on Sievers Road

5/7/1911

Delmar Dudley has a force of men at work moving the late residence of his mother from its location on Fitch street, where it stood so many years, to his ranch, where he will make it into a model country home. We do not know what will be done with the land, but have heard that Mrs. Higgins who owns it, is contemplating returning to Dixon and will build herself a residence thereon.

1/1/1927

G.S.Simpson of Reno, Nev., has bought the Karl Hess improved farm of 47 acres on the south side of Putah creek and is moving his family onto the ranch. Hess is now devoting all his time to the development of Cypress Camp at the Wolfe corner north of town.

2/1/1927

G.S.Simpson of Reno, Nev., has bought the Karl Hess improved farm of 47 acres on the south side of Putah creek and is moving his family onto the ranch. Hess is now devoting all his time to the development of Cypress Camp at the Wolfe corner north of town.

06/01/1928

Karl Hess reports that Cypress Camp Grove is busy night and day with a rush of business occasioned by the tourist season. The hustling young couple are developing a good wayside business at the Wolfe corner, and it increases each year.

1/1/1929

Karl Hess is improving Cypress Camp three miles north of town. He is adding another pump--Richfield-- and moving all three closer to the highway. A suitable housing, Hof course, will be built. Other changes will be made at the Camp. He is now figuring on a "jazz front" in the shape of a large, brilliantly lighted' orange tree to the place, but this may prove too big an expense.

2/1/1929

CHICKEN THIEVES RAID CYPRESS CAMP GROVE. Karl Hess found an empty chicken house when he opened the door Friday morning to feed them. One hundred and twenty-five hens two years old had disappeared, and without even an alarming squawk. Tracks of a truck told the manner of their going, but nothing as to the whither, as tire tracks could not he followed on the highway. The belief is that they were taken to Sacramento, out of which city it is surmised that an organized gang is working the country.

6/1/1929

Karl Hess, of Cypress Camp Grove, is putting another grocery truck on his route to supply the trade.

6/1/1930

--- Cypress Camp Grove. 3 miles north -- Karl Hess.

---T.T. Mabbitt, a paper mache advertising novelties manufacturer, has become associated with Karl Hess in a company called the Cypress Camp Grove Studio and Factory. Mabbit makes such things as jumbo lemons and oranges, and considerable of his work can be seen at various places along the highway.

8/1/1930

---Cypress Camp Grove Papier Mache Company secured the contract for the Placer county display at the State Fair. -A relief map of the county will be one of the features.

1930/08/08

BANDIT RUN DOWN IN FIELD. When a man driving a car from San Francisco approached the Tremont intersection he noticed a man jump from a car and run into the Timm field, and the good looking woman in the car had a distressed expression on her face. Believing that something was not exactly right the man from the City stopped and inquired of the woman if anything had gone wrong. "There surely has! I've been robbed by that man!" she exclaimed. She was told to drive to the Hess corner. The San Francisco man left his son, about 20, to watch the robber while he drove to Cypress Camp Grove.

12/1/1930

Turkey shoots have been a little slow this year, but we expect a big crowd next Sunday, says Karl Hess.

We are shooting in competition now, four men at $1.00 for 3 shots and the high man gets a $3.00 tirleu pr $3.00 in merchandise. The Blue Rock shooting, 5 men shoot at 80 cents each, 10 shots, high man gets a $3.00 turkey or merchandise order. We have some good shots in Dixon. Bud Peters broke 25 straight on Blue Rocks. The Jones boys break around 23 out of 25. The Raabe boy, 9 out of 10, and other Dixon fellows are good shots. We have completed a new decorated living room, in plastic stipple in relief, a mountain scene, water falls, etc. now open for inspection. Cypress Camp Grove.

12/1/1930 Silver Fir Xmas Trees at $1 each, Cypress Camp Grove, Karl Hess;

9/10/1931

FREE PONY RIDES FOR THE CHILDREN. Karl Hess recently bought the riding ponies at Capitola Riding Stables and has them at his Cypress Camp Grove north of town. In order to introduce them, he is inviting the children of the Dixon community to come out and have a free ride next week. All gentle, likeable ponies, all colors, and enjoy children.

07/21/1933

- Karl Hess says that his roadside sale of milk and buttermilk has reached a high of 160 quarts a day.

Over the summer months Cypress camp Grove will average 100 quarts a day. Milk and buttermilk is featured at "ten cents for all that you want to drink."

08/25/1933

RENO YOUNG MAN KILLED AT DEATH CURVE. "Death corner," the acute turn one mile east of Cypress Camp Grove and often referred to as the Frese corner, claimed another victim on Friday night. Earle Walther, 28, state agent for the Bankers Life of Des Moines, accompanied by J. Coughlin and Jean Woodson, all of Reno, came to the turn before the driver realized that the road was not a straight-away to Dixon. The car rolled over three times, THREE CCC MEN HURT AT CURVE. At the same curve where Earle Walther met his death last Friday night, three young men from C.C. Camp at Forest Hill in Placer county had their car over-turn as they journeyed toward San Francisco Sunday morning. They, too, failed to note the warning sign by the side of the road.

1933/10/20

Oct. 20 - Ad.with photo: Karl A. Hess, Cypress Camp Grove, 3 miles north of Dixon, declares his customers say Hi-Octane and Rich lube together actually save money in the long run.

1937/09/01

ROY GILL HAS $23,000 FIRE. Fire destroyed the big hay barn containing 900 tons of chopped alfalfa hay, a combination grinding, feed mixing and calf barn, and an adjoining shed, on the Roy Gill home place on the state highway early yesterday forenoon. The Gill dairy is at its highest peak of production--2,100 gallons of milk a day. At the home dairy 300 cows are being milked, and at the other one to the west 450 cows are milked daily.

Monday was one of the best days that Karl Hess at Cypress Camp Grove has had. They sold 320 quarts of milk and buttermilk, with buttermilk leading as the popular beverage. So everybody is not drinking beer. Hess is not happy over the routing of the highway to cut out the two turns between which he is located, but will promptly move to the highway when it is changed. The Hesses have one of the most successful highway general service stands in the entire Sacramento valley.

1/1/1939

NEW HIGHWAY PROJECTED. In its budget of future road building the State has included a 7-mile straightaway stretch from one mile east of Davis to a connection with the highway north of Dixon. The new road will cross Putah creek south of Davis and over or under the S.F. railroad, and connect with 41 (?) from between the Dudley and Vaughn farm homes. Engineer Pierce has expressed himself as glad to be able to cut out the danger hazards of the narrow Putah creek bridge and the subway at Davis.

1939/02/01

Hess. Is Already Planning to Move. New Highway to be Finished This Fall. Although it will put him to some expense, Karl Hess is unperturbed by the building of the new section of state highway that will cut his corner off from the main stream of travel. After personally looking over the maps he is already planning on getting a new site as near to his present location as possible but closer to Dixon.

He was told that the new road will parallel the railroad to the square house, on the southeast outskirts of Davis, wide-curving into a straight--away stretch that will not deviate from that point until the Midway or former book sign corner between Dixon and Vacaville is reached. "The road will pass Frese's corner about fifty feet to the east and diagonal across the fields to highway 40 south of the Dudley home. I was told that the road will be finished at least to the Frese corner by this fall. Then, they may have to stop for the time being for lack of money to finish the unit. There has been no budgeting of the second unit from highway 40 to the book sign corner."

Again, the present highway is in good, going condition. And by cutting out Davis curving subway and the narrow Putah bridge two bad danger hazards will have been eliminated which is one of the big considerations with the Commission in building the proposed stretch of road, we are told. Hess is now operating on seven acres of land under lease from Mrs. Wolfe. He recently built a new cottage for his personal occupancy but so that it can be easily moved to any site. His principal investment is in buildings, and ponies, of which he now has twenty-five, the largest herd in the state, he says. He is breeding in such a way that in a few years he will have a uniform type of pony, right size, color and temper for children."

04/01/1940

Karl Hess Starts Building On New Highway. The pile of lumber just north of the Dudley home on the highway belongs to Karl Hess. He is about to start erection of his new highway station, leading off with a barn for his ponies.

3/1/42

CONSTRUCTION ON AT HESS'S. Harry Islip, building contractor, has well under way the construction of a "lunch stand" 80x36 for Karl Hess on his tract north of town where the new cut-off highway intersects Highway 40. The basement has been finished and the floor joists laid. The filling station will be a separate building. It will be occupied by Homer Henderson present successful operator of the Milk Farm

1/1/1943 or 10/1/1943 page 9

The E.D.Dudley farm north of Dixon has been bought by Art Brown, owner and operator of the Dixon Livestock Auction Yards. The farm consists of 212 acres. Brown intends to move the auction yards to an area south-east of the Dudley buildings, having found that he must have larger quarters and new sales arrangement. He and Mrs. Brown will make the large farm house their place of residence.

4/1/45

TRUCK WITH 20 TONS OF BOMBS IN ACCIDENT. A Valley Express truck carrying ten 2-ton bombs to the Bay met with accident on the highway in front of the Howard Vaughn and former Dudley properties yesterday morning . After making the turn this side of the Milk Farm and on a smooth straight-away the coupling connection between the truck and the forward tractor disconnected and the front end of the load dropped to the roadway and skidding forward 50 yards came to a stop.

9/1/45

Money Set Aside for Four-Lane Highway. An allocation of $2,000,000 has been made for continuation of the 4-lane highway that ends at the Milk Farm north of here to Midway corner, then paralleling the present original highway to Ulatis creek east of Vacaville.

1/1/45

HENDERSON MILK FARM MAKING IMPROVEMENTS. P.17

1946/08/01 page 22

MILK FARM SOLD TO HENDERSON. Homer Henderson has bought from Karl Hess The Milk Farm on Highway 40 three miles north of Dixon. The Milk Farm had its start on the R. Wolfe ranch, when Hess tired of ranching on the former Downing tract on Putah creek and started a small service stop on the roadside, an ad that brought it a lot of trade being "All the milk you can drink for a dime."

1946/10/01

Milk Farm Opens Gift Department. (Marjorie Madden Mgr.)

3/1/47

Motel Planned On Highway North Of Dixon. (area developing into a lively spot on the highway). p.7.ACTIVITY IN THE MILK FARM AREA. p.11.

Motel Planned On Highway North Of Dixon. S.E. Croom, one of the leading automobile dealers of Napa, has bought the acreage between the Milk Farm filling station and the big orange, with plans already drawn for a four-unit, high type motel. With the Farm, Hess's pony farm and stables, filling station, big orange service on each side of the road, and the Dixon flying field, that area north of this place will develop into a lively spot on the highway.

09/01/1947

ACTIVITY IN THE MILK FARM AREA. The Milk Farm area north of Dixon is becoming a sort of suburb to the city. It's the most active spot between Sacramento and Vallejo. The Farm is the dominantly busy place with its average of 1000 sales slips a day. On the other side is Dixon Air Port and on both sides of the road are Giant Oranges. There is the Karl Hess horse stables and yards, his own home, the Girard home adjoining. A short distance to the north is the new Clark home, the Henderson home, the Higby home, and just across the road from Hess's is the big Gill ranch. On the south side of 40 is the Art Brown farm where he is leveling off for removing his sales yards to that area. Young Tom Hess is preparing to erect three houses for himself and two others.

09/01/1949

BIG 'NUT TREE' HAS GONE DEAD. The walnut tree for which the Nut Tree became famous must be dug up, having died an unknown death, says Ed Powers, owner. The tree reached its 90th year. The exact cause of drying up is not known, but it is known that it has been cut off from a lot of water by the building on one side, the highway on the other, and more or less oil drip from customer cars throughout the years. The Nut Tree is still faced with the prospect of being fenced off by the State Highway Commission, which would cut the turn-ins down to two, one in each direction, as at the Milk Farm.

11/01/1940

Hess Makes the Saturday Post. While others have to nay a lot of money for advertising in the Saturday Evening Post, Karl Hess made it in a recent issue for nothing. The author of a story about the competition between trains and trucks mentioned the truck drivers stopping at the Karl Hess Milk Farm between San Francisco and Reno and drinking all the milk they could hold for ten cents, good business policy on the part of Hess.

Karl Hess's Most Famous Customer. Most famous person to have stopped at the Hess station north of town was Jack Dempsey at noon on Monday afternoon. He was on the way to Sacramento to referee a wrestling match. It did not take long for the help and other diners to get onto their visitor, and between mouthfuls he was cheerfully yielding to admirers for his autograph.

Milk Farm/Dudley Ranch/Cypress Grove Camp history from the Tribunes

For those who want all the info...

photo c/o Thomas Dickson's 3x Great Grandchildren thru the Dudley line, Gigi Coe and her brothers, Bruce and Matthew

photo c/o The Dixon Patch as well as the photo featured on the blog post