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Meet Tulsan John Davidson.
John Davidson is the last milkman in Oklahoma.
Once there were dozens, in Tulsa and most other cities. They delivered milk and butter and eggs and similar foods on regular routes, every morning. They began disappearing in the 1950s, but some dairies kept them on until the 1970s. Gradually, almost all dairies quit milk delivery.
And now there is just John Davidson.
Four days a week, he rises at 4 a.m. to begin delivering fresh milk, eggs and other items to about 100 customers in Tulsa. Once, he and the dairy milkmen drove special trucks. Now Davidson uses a custom refrigerated trailer he built in 1996. He had a truck when he started, but it wore out; the trailer, he says, “is a lot more efficient.”
Davidson never intended to be a milkman. He and some partners ran three Char House restaurants. But he tired of that business and in 1986 got a chance to buy a milk route.
“The guy that delivered our milk told me about a guy that was retiring,” Davidson says.
So he bought the route.
He began with Meadow Gold, which once had 105 milkmen in Tulsa. But in about 1975, Meadow Gold quit home delivery. It offered drivers a chance to buy their trucks and keep their routes. Some did, including Gerald Birmingham, who had delivered his route for 42 years until he sold it to Davidson.
When Davidson started, there were half a dozen milkmen still delivering in Tulsa, “but as they retired or just got tired, there were less and less,” he says.
Now, Davidson says, “I am the last one in Oklahoma.” He adds, “When they find me dead in somebody’s front yard, that’s going to be the end of the milk business in Tulsa.”
Most of his customers are in midtown, roughly 11th to 51st streets and Riverside Drive to Harvard Avenue. But he delivers to some University of Tulsa sororities and as far south as 114th Street and Sheridan Avenue.
Most of his customers have been with him for years. One of his original customers, whom he served for 25 years, just died; his widow moved to a nursing home, so that stop ended.
“Once I have a customer, they usually stay until the kids are grown and they aren’t using milk anymore,” he says, adding, “There just aren’t as many milk drinkers as there used to be.”
In the 1930s and into the 1950s, the dairy milkman was a common sight in almost every city or even many smaller communities. Dairies put out printed lists of items to order and sometimes supplied cooling boxes for the milk and eggs if customers weren’t home at delivery time.
Davidson used to supply metal boxes, “but they became antiques and people would steal them.” He still has “quite a few” in use, he says, but mostly he either delivers to people who are at home, who put ice chests out for him to fill or who give him access to areas where he can leave the products.
He doesn’t use order forms anymore, either. Mostly, he just knows what customers want or need and delivers that.
He delivers juices, water and other items, but his basic products are milk and dairy, which he now gets from Hiland Dairy in Catoosa. He was with Meadow Gold until Borden bought that dairy, then switched to Farm Fresh, which Hiland then bought. Now he goes every morning to Hiland’s plant in Catoosa to load up.
He gets his eggs from Fisher Eggs in Bristow — “the best eggs available in Tulsa … the only fresh eggs you can get,” he says. Most eggs sold in Tulsa come from Missouri, Arkansas or Georgia. Davidson gets a weekly delivery from Fisher.
Juices, bottled water and some other items he buys from Sam’s Wholesale Club. He will, he says, “deliver anything that Sam’s carries.” For one customer, that included a lawnmower.
“If I can make a buck bringing it to you, I’ll bring it to you,” he says.
Customers can choose delivery once or twice a week. Most choose weekly.
His prices “are just slightly higher than grocery stores,” he says.
Davidson starts his rounds at about 5 a.m. and is usually done before noon.
He sees some signs of a comeback in home deliveries, with cleaners and grocers now occasionally offering such services. At 57, he has no plans to quit delivering milk. And he still lives in the midtown area, where he grew up and attended Hale High School (class of 1971).
While many might balk at the early rising, Davidson says it does have its advantages. With an early finish and a four-day week, there is lots of time for fishing and hunting.
For more information about Davidson, visit www.tulsamilkman.com.
