Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Eckelman, Charles E. ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com February 1, 2011, 3:55 pm Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 834 - 835 Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company CHARLES E. ECKELMAN, accounted one of the substantial and progressive business men of Portland, has been identified with dairy interests here since 1909 and in May, 1912, associated with his brother Paul, he organized the Riverview Dairy Company, which has since been developed into one of the leading enterprises of this character in Oregon. Charles E. Eckelman was born in Hamburg, Germany, a son of Mr. and Mrs. Carl E. Eckelman, who spent their entire lives in that country. In 1865 the paternal grandfather of Charles E. Eckelman established a shipping business in Hamburg which was later carried on by his son, Carl E., and is now conducted by two brothers of Charles E. Eckelman as one of the successful business interests of that city. The death of Carl E. Eckelman occurred when his son Charles was a youth of fourteen and the mother died when he was three years of age. Reared in his native city, Charles E. Eckelman attended the public schools to the age of fifteen years and in 1900 became an apprentice seaman on a sailing vessel on which he spent two years, visiting the principal ports of the world, but after making two trips around the globe he abandoned a seafaring life and settled in New York city, accompanied by his brother Paul. There they turned their attention to the retail milk business, in which they continued until 1909, when they left the eastern metropolis and came to Portland, where they were associated with the same line of activity. The Riverview Dairy Company had its inception in May, 1912, when the Eckelman brothers began delivering milk with one wagon. The name Riverview was selected because the dairy from which they obtained milk overlooked the Columbia river, occupying the ground now owned by the Alderwood Country Club. In the beginning their sales amounted to only about three hundred quarts of milk per day, but gradually they gained added patronage and in November, 1913, removed to the present location on Belmont street, occupying a rented building twenty-two by sixty feet. By this time their business had grown to the extent that they required three teams to handle the milk, which was sold only to the retail trade. About 1915 they began the manufacture of butter and success attended the new undertaking. From early youth the brothers were closely associated in all their undertakings and Paul Eckelman continued an active factor in the conduct of the Riverview dairy to the time of his death, which resulted from an accident in the plant. He was a man of marked enterprise, unfaltering industry and progressive spirit and in his passing Portland lost one of its leading and representative business men. Charles E. Eckelman has since carried on the business, increasing its scope, while its patronage has continually grown. The condensed milk department was added in 1922 and in 1928 a department was established for the manufacture of powdered milk. The present office of the company was originally a milk room when the Sunnyside district was a farm and is situated at Thirty-fourth and Belmont streets. The great modern Riverview plant at Thirty-fourth and Morrison streets is always open for inspection and is admitted by authorities to be the largest and finest in the Pacific northwest. About 1917 the company began to motorize its equipment, which now includes twenty-seven delivery trucks, eight wagons and twenty-two horses. There are two collecting stations — one at Battle Ground and the other at Woodland, Washington, and both are supplied with ice machines, coolers and every device necessary for the proper care of the milk. Mr. Eckelman owns a farm of one hundred and fifty-eight acres on Sandy boulevard and is planning to there install a complete plant for the purpose of furnishing milk specially prepared for infants. A visit to the establishment of the Riverview Dairy Company is a revelation to those who are not familiar with the great care and the complex process which is used in furnishing milk to the public. The most sanitary conditions exist and the dairy measures up to the highest standards in every particular. A graduate chemist is in charge of the laboratory, which is modern and complete in every respect. Every day milk is taken at random from the regular run and tested for the butter-fat content, bacteria count, etc., thus maintaining the quality that has made Riverview milk the leading brand for fifteen years. Acidophilus milk, another product of the firm, is at once a food, a beverage and a tonic. A number of skilled mechanics are employed in the garage and plant and the truck bodies and milk wagons are made by the firm. The milk is brought in from the country in glass-lined insulated tanks mounted on motor trucks or trailers. There are five of these tanks, one holding sixteen hundred gallons, another six hundred and fifty gallons, and three with a capacity of twelve hundred gallons. If the milk is sent direct from the producer in cans, these are run on a conveyor, emptied, washed, sterilized and returned to the producer. The bottles are washed six times inside and outside with alkali solutions and sterilized with boiling hot water. In the receiving room the milk is weighed and sampled immediately upon arrival from the farm, and is then pumped to the storage tank and made to conform to the four per cent butter-fat standard. In the tiled Pasteurizing room, the largest in the northwest, the milk is heated to one hundred and forty-five degrees Fahrenheit and held there for thirty minutes. From there it is pumped to coolers and to tanks for storage. The milk is next conveyed by pipe lines to the bottling machines which have a combined capacity of about one hundred and ninety-five bottles per minute, after which it is carried under sprinklers directly into a refrigerator, where it remains in a temperature of forty degrees until delivered. The sweetened, condensed skimmed milk, used principally by bakeries, is shipped as far north as Bellingham, Washington, and as far south as California, while the whole condensed milk is sold chiefly to candy factories. The firm handles about one hundred thousand pounds of milk per day and twenty- five hundred pounds of butter. This extensive industry, operated under the name of the Riverview Dairy Company, is the outgrowth of the well matured plans, the constructive labors and administrative power of Charles and Paul Eckelman, who also attribute their success in large measure to their loyal employes, who are their coworkers. Between Charles Eckelman and the men in his service there always exists a most friendly relation. Mr. Eckelman has about ninety employes and transacts a business amounting to one million, one hundred thousand dollars annually. Charles E. Eckelman is a York Rite Mason and holds the office of veiled prophet in the Shrine. The Portland Chamber of Commerce numbers his among its influential members and he is also connected with the East Side Commercial Club. Coming to America a poor immigrant boy who had lost his parents and who started out in life here empty handed, he has made a notable record inasmuch as he has attained a place among Portland's honored men of affairs, and his example may well serve as a source of encouragement and inspiration to the ambitious youth of the present, as his record clearly demonstrates what can be accomplished through individual effort. He stands today as a foremost representative of the dairy interests of the northwest and the methods which he has used are such as constitute the basis of all honorable and desirable prosperity. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/or/multnomah/bios/eckelman1445gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/orfiles/ File size: 8.3 Kb