Creation Date

1930 – 1983

Description

Butter Printer / Butter cutter / Butter press used at Cyrus Creamery 1945 - 1983. The butter is packed into the box using the large square mallet. The removalble wooden frame goes on top of the box to guide the butter. Once the box is filled and packed, the top is leveled using the wooden handle with a single wire. Then the cutter frame is closed on top and the entire piece is flipped over. There are handles on one side and the other side is bolted to the table to make the flipping easy. The flexible tray is placed underneath and then the bottom of the butter box is pressed down. This pushes the butter thought the wires and you are left with 25 perfectly shaped pounds of butter on the flexible tray. These pounds were hand wrapped and shipped to local stores. The printer itself is 28.5 x 20.5 x 8.25" The packer is 11.5" high and 5.5" square on the base. The top smoothing tool is 16.75 x 3 x 1.25" with a 12.5 wire for cutting. The slatted / flexible surface is made up of 5 slats with 5 diagonal strips that adjust. It has wire handles. The owner of creamery was Gilbert Ahlstrand. It was run by Curtis and Gen Gunvalson. 1,300,000 pounds of butter manufactured by it, about 800 lbs daily. Cyrus was the last independent butter manufacturer in the state of Minnesota. See article in the Starbuck Times September 28, 1983.