“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!” was an expression I often heard from my dad. While our favorite dairy treat was purchased at the Dairy Queen in Harleysville, youngsters from Souderton were drooling over the Frostie Cup at Old Bethlehem Pike and Route 113.
Since the base of making ice cream is milk, cream and sugar, it’s not surprising that the Frostie Cup got its start from a former dairy man. Jacob N. Landes, and his brother Abe, owned the Landes Brothers Dairy on Green Street, Souderton, in the early 1920s. They incorporated ice cream into the dairy business as early as 1932. But in 1936, the brothers split the business.
Abe went to work as a huckster, raising and preparing poultry that was sold in Philadelphia and elsewhere. His poultry business was next door to the dairy on Green Street. Jacob continued with the dairy, which he now called West View Dairy. It had no livestock, so farmers would bring their milk to the dairy for pasteurization. But Jacob, an entrepreneur at heart, had bigger dreams.
By the mid-1950s, he had observed the already busy traffic on the corner of Rt. 113 and “the Old 309” and thought it a good place for a business. Before selling to Frederick’s Flowers — now closed — Jacob owned the farm on that corner and considered starting there. But the opposite corner had been a parking lot for a long time with only a garage. So that corner was chosen.
In an interview, Robert “Speedy” Landes — Jacob’s son — reminisced about helping his dad in the dairy and driving around to look at several establishments to get ideas for an ice cream business. Jacob built the business from scratch with ideas he had put together — including its most popular feature, the walk-up window. People would park and walk up to place their orders.
Since it was not a franchise, Jacob chose the name Frostie Cup, which Speedy says had nothing to do with Wendy’s frozen treat. In 1962, West View Dairy was sold to Martin Century Farms dairy in Lansdale, but Jacob continued running the Frostie Cup until his son was able to take over. Speedy got his nickname not from racing but by riding his bike from Souderton High School — where he graduated in 1956 — to the Frostie for his after-school job. Passersby would say “there goes Speedy” and the name stuck. Speedy says he was just trying to be the first one there!
They used CRE-MEE soft serve ice cream, which locals called the best. The Frostie Cup started out with sundaes, ice cream cones, and root beer floats. Hot dogs, hamburgers, cheesesteaks, and hoagies were added to the menu later.
Those large glass mugs with the sturdy handles in which the root beer floats were served were as popular as the beverage itself. People tried collecting them, and as Speedy recalls, one lady came with a car full of kids and tried to drive off with the mugs. He chased after and pulled her over to get the mugs back. “She didn’t have kind words for me,” he chuckles.
Another story involved Bob Wellington and his old Cushman motor scooter. When he took the brake off, he came crashing into the window.
Speedy enjoyed watching the local teens, Little League players, and friends from the Vargos Dragway in Perkasie stop in for a cool treat on a hot summer day. And why not? Kid’s cones were only 5 cents, and the large ones were 25 cents! Even “Concrete Charlie” Bednarik couldn’t resist. Speedy recalls the day when the 6-foot, 3-inch Eagles linebacker and future Hall of Famer wrapped his gnarly fingers around a large cone. “It was gone in five minutes.
”Souderton’s Frostie Cup season ran from spring until Thanksgiving. Although there were other ice cream businesses around — Dairy Queen in Harleysville, and Hagey’s on County Line Road in Souderton — Speedy says competitors were local and all were friendly. “The guy at Hagey’s … went to Florida in the winters and always gave us his surplus.” It was neighbor helping neighbor. So, what is his favorite flavor? “C-M-P,” he says, “chocolate, marshmallow, peanut,” although second would be a black and white milkshake, vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup.
I don’t know about you, reader, but he’s making me hungry for my favorite Dusty Road sundae: ice cream topped with chocolate syrup and malted milk powder. “People like that in a milkshake too,” Speedy adds.
In the mid-1960s, the owner of the ground on which the Frostie Cup stood showed up unexpectedly at the window and declared he was not renewing the lease. The ground was sold, and another owner took over the ice cream business until the mid-1980s. Speedy, who married and went to work for Haines and Kibblehouse, still loves ice cream. “But I don’t have it in the house, or I would eat the whole thing.”
While Frostie Cup was making ice cream fun for one and all, the dairy also continued home delivery of milk. In the early years, most of the dairy business was north of Chestnut Street and deliveries were made with one Model T Ford truck. As the business grew, the route extended into Telford and became two routes. At this time, a horse and wagon was added to deliver the milk north of Hillside Avenue.
At the plant, ice was used for refrigeration until 1927, when automatic refrigeration arrived. In 1929 a pasteurizer was installed, and a third route started through Hatfield, Line Lexington, and Colmar. In 1930 another route was bought in Silverdale, Perkasie and Sellersville. The horse and wagon were replaced by trucks in order to provide better service.
During the early 1930s, 16 farmers brought their state-inspected milk early each morning to the dairy, where it was filtered, pasteurized and cooled. The milk was poured into sterilized bottles, capped and loaded into trucks for early morning delivery. From 1957-1959, John Derstine assisted the truck driver in delivering milk, chocolate milk, eggs, butter and orange juice in Souderton. Now a member of the Souderton-Telford Historical Society, John shared his memories of being a teen-age delivery boy in a 2017 society newsletter:
“I remember needing to be woken up by mom before 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning and being driven to Green Street. I lived on Penn Avenue, so it only took several minutes to get to the dairy. “Once there, we would load the truck with milk bottles and other items sold. Bottles were first loaded into small crates with wire dividers. The crates were stacked in the truck and then covered with buckets of ice until there was 3-4 inches of ice on the crates. The crates were covered by heavy tarps to preserve the ice as long as possible. There was no refrigerated truck, and not much ice was left at the end of a hot summer day.
“Even though the dairy had started to carry ice cream in the 1930s, it wasn’t part of the delivery by truck. My great-uncle, who worked for the dairy, would bring heavy canvas bags filled with dry ice and individual size ice cream ‘dixie cups’ to our family reunion.
“The milk route I served included West Chestnut Street, Penn Avenue, Washington Avenue, and ended on Front Street. Frequently, when I carried someone’s order from the truck to the insulated milk box at a home, I would find a note attached requesting additional items. Then I would need to collect the empty bottles from the previous week and return them to the truck, find the new items and return to the milk box. I added up the bills and collected money, as Saturday was collection day. I wore a coin holder on my belt for change. It was a very long day, and we often worked until 1:30 p.m.
“When we were finished our delivery, the driver, Vince Moyer, and I would eat at Klee’s Restaurant on Front Street, where most of the food was Pennsylvania Dutch. Mr. Klee was the baker, and his wife made great tasting food, but I always ordered the same: 2 hamburgers and mashed potatoes. The hamburger cost 25 cents each and vegetables cost 15 cents. My route driver always paid for my lunch plus he paid me $4 for the approximate 10-hour day. Every sixth Saturday there was a substitute driver; he paid me only $3.50. The driver took me home, where I was expected to save all of my pay except 50 cents.
“It took at least a year, but I eventually bought a 3-speed red Schwinn bike at Mininger’s Bike Shop with my savings from West View Dairy.”
Read more: The historical souvenir booklet, Souderton Half Century of Progress (1887-1937), provides a detailed early history of West View Dairy.
(Related article: A Deadly Case of Spilled Milk.)
The Gazette is edited by Edie Adam. Email: newsletter@soudertontelfordhistory.org.
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