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-
