of activity sweeps west from the Atlantic seaboard to the 
Mississippi River and south from the Great Lakes to Dixieland. 
Previous to the inception of the National Dairy Products 
Corporation in 1923 Mr. Rieck had by various steps built his 
business to the point where the corporation he led was domi- 
nant in the distribution of milk, cream, ice cream and other 
dairy products throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania. In 
1898 Mr. Rieck made his first ice cream following the expan- 
sion of facilities that came when the business was incorpor- 
ated as the Edward E. Rieck Company of Pennsylvania. This 
organization continued to prosper and grow to immense pro- 
portion until 1918 when the McJunkin-Straight Dairy Com- 
pany was absorbed. That corporation has since been known 
as the Rieck-McJunkin Dairy Company and operates three 
plants in Pittsburgh and others in McKeesport, Butler, New 
Castle, and Charleroi. 
It was in 1923 that the Rieck-McJunkin Dairy Company 
in cooperation with the Hydrox Corporation of Chicago, 
which similarly dominated the Chicago dairy field, formed 
the necleus of the National Dairy Corporation. Mr. Rieck 
headed the latter as Chairman of the Board of Directors while 
Thomas H. Mclnnerney, President of the Hydrox Corpora- 
tion and a prominent Chicago financier and industrialist, 
became President. 
While this organization was being completed a program of 
expansion began. In keeping with the character of the princi- 
pal companies the units that have been added are uniformly 
old established companies and invariably good earning prop- 
erties. First, National Dairy Products Corporation took over 
the Castles Ice Cream Company of Perth Amboy, N. J., and 
the J. T. Castles Ice Cream Company of Newark, N.J., through 
an exchange of National Dairy common for the common stock 
of the subsidiaries. The two Castles companies controlled the 
ice cream situation in many sections of New Jersey after 
operations dating back to 1892. J. T. Castles continues to 
manage both enterprises. Later the W. EE. Hoffman Company 
operating plants in Altoona, Phillipsburg, Barnesboro, and 
Tyrone, Pa., was acquired by outright purchase from the sur- 
plus of National Dairy. This company began ice cream man-