Today in Jacksonville History: Feb. 14, 1929

Machine guns drowned out the Big Moo.

Seven Chicago gangsters were gunned down Feb. 14, 1929, the day Foremost Dairies was born.

The Chicago carnage was forever known as the Valentine's Day massacre.

Who remembers Jacksonville's best-known dairy, and all that good stuff we grew up with, was born the same day?

In Chicago, phony policemen machine-gunned the Bugs Moran gang in a North Clark Street garage. The newspapers said it was "an innovation in Chicago gang history."

It brought to 135 the victims of gang warfare in the Windy City.

In Augusta, Ga., the deal was struck said to make Jacksonville the milk bucket of Dixie.

A new company headed by Burdette Lewis, ramrod of Penney-Gwinn Farms, near Green Cove Springs, acquired "between 25 and 30" dairies and ice cream companies in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina.

The Jacksonville Journal said the new combine's headquarters would be in Jacksonville.

The company enfolded the Georgia-Carolina Dairy Products Co., Augusta Ice and Coal, Augusta Creamery and the Kinnett-Odom Co. of Macon with Florida companies, including Berrier Ice Cream of Jacksonville, Southland Ice Cream of Ocala and Stillings, Inc. of Daytona Beach.

Lewis said the scope of the new "Foremost" organization would include associated dairymen who would be helped in acquiring high-grade cattle.

For generations, Foremost put the milk on Jacksonville tables and the ice cream in its youngsters' tummies.

The rat-tat-tat of the Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago has resonated through the years.

The birth of what once was a Southern icon was almost immediately forgotten.

As news goes, it was sort of vanilla.  

Also on Feb. 14, 1929:

• Col. Charles A. Lindbergh passed up Jacksonville on his flight to Sapelo Island from the Republic of Panama. The Jacksonville airport awaited the Lone Eagle but he flew on.
• An automobile built for King Albert of Belgium drew a crowd to the George Washington Hotel. New York City financier Jonathan Starr said he had refused $40,000 for the hand-crafted car, which is driven by a Japanese chauffeur named Tawana, who is accompanied by a $7,500 dog named J.R.
• The Jacksonville Bar Association launched a war on "ambulance chasers" at its annual meeting at the Carling Hotel. Stanton Walker was elected president.

Bill Foley was a Times-Union reporter, editor and columnist for more than 40 years. He’s best known for his quirky columns about Jacksonville and Northeast Florida’s history. He wrote this series of Millennium Moments columns in 1999 leading up to the year 2000. Foley died in 2001 at age 62.