On November 21, 1903, a committee was appointed to set up the Cooperative Butter Company, with a Mr Matthew Wallace as Chairman.

The first item of business was to construct a refrigerated factory in Macksville, and 1500 shares worth a pound a piece were advertised.

A Mr Debenham set up the first Macksville Butter Factory on Princess St, but by 1911 the site on the North Macksville river bank donated by Mr Wallace was found to be more appropriate.

A motor launch run by a Mr Walter Maslen transported the cream from all the Nambucca River wharves – from Taylors Arm down – to the Nambucca Dairy Co factory. 

It was an ordeal getting the boxes onto the trains after the rail line terminated at Macksville after 1919.

“The boxes were loaded onto the trucks, which ran from the factory across the road to the wharf, and manhandled onto the boat (about 50 boxes at a time), which would then go across to Tilly Willy,” Bill Miles recalled in David Dunne’s Precious Memories.

The boxes were then winched up by “old Johnny Gossen and Pat Pullen” and loaded by hand on a truck, meaning each box was handled no less than five times throughout the process.

The Bowraville Butter Factory was set up a few years after and proved stiff competition to the Macksville one, until they amalgamated under the banner of the Nambucca River Co-Op Society Limited in 1954.

In 1958 the Macksville Butter Factory closed and it was used for a while as a milk pasteurisation and reception depot, while MidCo leased space for a smallgoods production unit.

According to former apprentice Butch Laverty, MidCo Smallgoods employed around 50 people at the height of operation. 

He says it was a different era back then and his mouth curls up at the corners as he remembers some of the antics they used to get up to: “None that you’d be allowed to publish though.”

A number of young locals received their first taste of the workforce in the smallgoods and bacon floors, packing room and office.

Narelle House remembers working there in the holidays – even on Boxing Day – and said it was “cold, noisy and hard on your feet”.

Audrey Tilbrook has lived next door to the factory for 50 years and said she distinctly remembers one female worker who made a habit of climbing onto the roof during her lunchbreak to sunbake.

While her daughter, Tilly Johnson, remembers greeting the workers as they came out of the factory, in their white overalls and little white caps – she in fact had to wash those overalls after her father’s shifts at the factory.

“There was no brick wall then between the factory and our backyard, so Mum would always make sure we hung our undies out on the inside of the line so they weren’t seen by the workers,” she said.

Betty Gust remembers the building well, too: “Nearly-to-the-bridge landmark. School bus”.

Every butcher and corner store in a 200km radius stocked the award-winning MidCo products – 500 stores in total.

“We moved to Coffs Harbour in 1980 to run a small general store. We were happy to stock MidCo products which were delivered to the shop weekly,” Moira Ryan said.

“The bacon and ham were excellent products – regular medal winners at the Sydney Royal Easter Show and the other smallgoods were also high quality.  Of course the meat was sourced from producers in the Nambucca. It was a big disapointment when the factory closed.”

The factory sat vacant and crumbling for nearly 30 years, inspiring more than a few lurid legends, until last year when owner Tim Erskine-Smith finally got the go-ahead to bring it down. 

For many it has been sad to see the end of an era … but the optimists out there are keen for the next chapter.

Smallgoods greenlighted for demolition

Remnants of the past