Deters History
1888 – John J. Deters, a European immigrant from Furstinau, Germany settles
in Quincy, IL.
1892 – Mr. Deters founds Deters Dairy. The business starts as a dairy product distribution company. Local dairy producers would bring their milk to the Deters location where it would be refrigerated and then sold door-to-door using a horse drawn wagon.
1928 – An important year for Deters Dairy. With the acquisition of another local dairy, Deters begins bottling milk for the first time on August 15th 1928.Initially the bottling is all done by hand. Capacity is only 72 quarts and 40 pints of milk per day. That same year, Deters starts their own dairy herd – holsteins of course!!
1940 – Construction of a modernized large-scale milk bottling plant is completed.
1941 – Deters Dairy begins pasteurizing their milk products. Initially customers are given the choice of raw or
pasteurized milk. At that time quarts of raw milk were sold for 9 cents while pasteurized quarts cost 11 cents!
Deters began homogenizing milk several years later. Also in 1941 the first billboard advertisements for Deters
products begin running.
1948 – The first Deters Dairy malt shop style ice cream store opens to the public in Quincy Illinois. The store
proves very successful and a second store is added just two years later.
1957 – To meet increasing demand for more products a new state of the art milking parlor with a 12 cow capacity
is built. Subsequently Deters increases its herd size to 200 cows – a very large herd for the 1950’s.
1958 – The Deters processing plant is expanded to increase pasteurization capacity as well as to add a laboratory
testing facility to improve quality control.
1979 – A second major plant expansion is completed to provide separate processing facilities for ice cream and fluid products.
1987 – Retail locations continue to be opened with the opening of the 9th Deters location.
1998 – A major fire destroys a substantial portion of the main Deters Dairy facilities. The warehouse, milking parlor, and several large free stall barns are completely destroyed while the main plant suffers major fire and smoke damage. Later that year, most of the plant is rebuilt and the dairy herd resumes milking at a secondary location.
2001 – Rich and Greg Deters, great grandsons of John J. Deters, open a unique Deters ice cream location based
on the family tradition but focused on the increasingly popular french style ice cream or as it is commonly referred
– Frozen Custard.
2003 – The second Deters Frozen Custard location opens in O’Fallon, Missouri. Located within the town center of
a unique new urban development - called Winghaven. The new location is the culmination of an effort to bring together
the great past Deters traditions of quality products, friendly service and neighborhood interaction with new modern style
urban development.
2007 – The Deters Frozen Custard store in Quincy is moved from 36th Street to Broadway. The new Broadway location provides increased visibility for the Deters brand.
2009 – The Deters Winghaven location is moved to O’Fallon Road and Highway 94 in Weldon Springs, Missouri. Once again, this move provides significantly more traffic and visibility.
2010 – Deters opens a third frozen custard location in St. Charles, Missouri. The St. Charles location opens near the Friedens Road and Highway 94 intersection.
