Wellington Cheese Heritage Festival

  Around 1875, Wellington, Ohio led the nation in cheese production with more than 40 cheese factories and many large ice-refrigerated storage plants.  The - Wellington product was shipped in boxes to all points of the compass and abroad until the town was called the “Cheese Capital of the World”

- The Horr-Warner Company at one time had 17 factories in Wellington and seven more in Elyria. Convinced of the superior quality of Wellington cheese and with an ever-increasing inexhaustible supply on hand, Horr & Warner Company searched for a larger market.  In what perhaps was the peak year, 1878, Wellington shipped 6,475,674 pounds of cheese and 1,100,661 pounds of butter all over the United States and many foreign lands.  The value of the commodity exceeded $800,000.

- Cheese making ceased about 1912 with the closing of the B.B. Herrick factory.  With the invention of refrigeration, dairymen found it more profitable to sell milk to creameries than to turn it into cheese.  Not a single cheese plant is operating now in the Wellington area.  About the only visible evidence remaining of the cheese industry is a large painted sign, “Cheese,” above the second floor windows of the Flat Iron block.

- Next time you drive along South Main Street, you’ll see many beautiful historic homes built by the cheese barons.