First a little history of the Braum's company. In 1968 Bill Braum opened the first Braum's Ice Cream & Dairy Store, but the Braum story actually begins long before that time, spanning three generations with over six decades of history behind it.
It actually began in Kansas:
It began in the State of Kansas in 1933. Bill was in grade school when he began his career by helping his father, Henry H. Braum, with the family business a small butter and milk processing plant in Emporia, Kansas. Seven years later ice cream processing was added to the operation. Bill worked through high school with his father and after college he came back to take a more active role in the family business. Henry Braum sold the wholesale part of the business in 1952 and began specializing in ice cream, developing a chain of retail ice cream stores in Kansas called "Peter Pan".
The company had about 61 retail stores, when a large wholesaler brought the Peter Pan chain of stores. The Braum dairy herd and processing plant was not included in the sale, but Braums would not be allowed to sell ice cream in the State of Kansas for ten years.
A move to Oklahoma:
In 1968 Bill and his wife Mary, moved to Oklahoma City and started a new chain of retail stores called BRAUM'S ICE CREAM AND DAIRY STORES. That first year twenty four stores were opened in Oklahoma. The Braum dairy herd and processing plant were still located in Emporia, Kansas and the ice cream, dairy products and other supplies had to be transported daily from Emporia to Oklahoma. For three years, Braum's store were serviced from the Emporia plant until a new processing plant was built in Oklahoma City in 1971.
In 1975 the Braum dairy herd was moved from Emporia to its new home located in Tuttle, Oklahoma. Today, Braum's owns eight farms and ranching, totaling over 40,000 acres of some of the best farm and ranchland in America. Each plays its own unique role in the Braum operation from housing the Braum cows, to the growing of alfalfa hay to feed the dairy herd, to growing pecans to be used in your favorite ice cream flavors.
In 1993 Braum's built a new milking complex on the Tuttle, Oklahoma Farm. This complex has a milking parlor which is the largest of its kind in the world. Three times a day, twenty-four hours a day, Braum's is milking 10,000 cow.
Today Braum's is the only major ice cream maker in the country that milks it's own cows.
