Crystal Springs Creamery: George E. Moon's butter company (in the record by 1907) — and the Martin family's creamery of the same name (2017– )

BY 1907–1916 · AND 1996–PRESENT · TWO FIRMS, ONE NAME, PRINTED APART

The township's one named food manufacturer of the gazetteer age is a creamery, and its officer is a farmer this build already knows: George E. Moon — born on his Penn Township farm 25 December 1856, owner of 240 acres "all cleared and under an excellent state of cultivation" — was, beside his farming, "the president, treasurer and salesman of the Crystal Springs Creamery" (Howard, vol. 2, in his sketch, pp. 934–935 as carried in People). Howard's volume is of 1907, so the creamery stands in the record by that year, run by a working farmer wearing all three of its offices at once. The gazetteer of 1916–17 lists it as a company: "Crystal Springs Creamery Co," among Osceola's five firms. The Farmer's Exchange, writing of the modern firm in 2020, dates the original a generation earlier — "a company that manufactured butter in the area in the late 1800s" — and the two datings print as they stand: a butter manufacturer of the late 1800s on the farm paper's telling, a going concern with a farmer-president by 1907 on Howard's, a listed company in 1916–17 on Polk's. When it closed, no source says; the creamery's end is a named gap in the closing roll, and the South Bend Tribune's run and the state dairy reports are its settlers. The dairy system the creamery drew on — the township's herds and milk routes — is the Farms leg's article; this section carries the firm.

The name's second life is a naming, not a succession, and the record says so itself: the modern Crystal Springs Creamery stands at 60020 Ash Road — a five-digit address, township ground outside the town limits by the town's own addressing rule, on the township's east edge near the Elkhart County line. The Martin family came to that ground from Nappanee: Tim Martin, "a dairy farmer since birth," moved his family in 1996 "to begin his own conventional milking operation" at the corner of Ash and Jackson roads (the Farmer's Exchange, 29 May 2020). The operation grew to some 600 acres and about 300 cows, milked three times a day. In 2017 the family built an on-farm processing plant and began with yogurt and cheese curds — the venture grew from a yogurt recipe Tim Martin's father had been perfecting for years — and in 2019 added glass-bottled milk; farm-fresh ice cream followed in the spring of 2022; the farm store, in a 40-year-old barn, sells the creamery's products beside produce, beef, pork and bought-in bakery goods. The federal Interstate Milk Shippers list carries the plant today: "CRYSTAL SPRINGS CREAMERY, OSCEOLA — Plant BTU No. 1942," with a compliance/enforcement rating of 90 and a rating expiration of 31 March 2028, as read for this build in November 2026. And the name: the Farmer's Exchange states plainly that "the creamery is named after a company that manufactured butter in the area in the late 1800s." The modern firm therefore prints as what its own record says it is — a new firm of 2017 that took a dead local company's name in homage — and not as a revival, a continuation, or a successor in law. No source reached joins the Moon company to the Martin farm by any thread but the name, and none is printed.

Sources:

1. Howard (1907), vol. 2, George E. Moon sketch (the creamery offices), read in the LDS Genealogy transcription of vol. 2, part 59, November 2026; Polk, 1916–17, pt. 2 (the company listing).
2. The Farmer's Exchange, "Crystal Springs Is Thriving with On-Site Processing," 29 May 2020 (the 1996 move, the 600 acres, the naming after the butter company), and its ISDA tour report, 27 May 2022 (the Ash Road address, the 2017/2019/2022 course, the store hours).
3. Crystal Springs Creamery, the firm's own "About Us" page (2017 yogurt; 2019 glass-bottled milk; spring 2022 ice cream; 300 Holstein cows; 60020 Ash Rd) — the firm's house account, attributed as such; University of Notre Dame, University Operations, Events, and Safety profile, originally published 2 September 2025 (the 2017 founding, the 2022 ice cream).
4. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Interstate Milk Shippers list (the plant entry, BTU No. 1942, rating expiration 03-31-2028), as read November 2026.