BROOKS

Brooks Cheese Company

In 1926, the Brooks creamery was purchased by the owners of the cheese factory in nearby Terrebonne, who moved their operation to Brooks. The business was widely known as the Brooks Cheese Company. It was a cheese factory owned by the Parenteau family, which sold its product to the Kraft Foods company, and marketed its products throughout the Midwest. Local farmers would process the milk from their own cows by removing the butterfat or cream, which was hauled in cream cans to the cheese factory, while the skim milk or whey was fed to hogs raised on the same farm. The Brooks Cheese Company continued in business until the late 1970s, at which point the decline of the family farm and the predominance of monoculture and industrial agriculture eliminated the mixed agriculture that formerly had predominated in the area of Brooks.

Although the local history of Red Lake County blames the National Farmers Organization for organizing farmers to cooperative actions in withholding milk shipments, the reality is that Brooks Cheese Company could not compete with the major industrial cheese manufacturers and the development of agribusiness which portended the demise of the family farm. By the beginning of the 21st century, few dairy cows could be found within twenty miles of Brooks, whereas at one time virtually every quarter section could be counted on for the cream produced by 10 or 15 cows. Nonetheless, Brooks continues to be the site of an agricultural supply business, a gas station, and several other local businesses, as well as one church.