Reed’s Dairy historic family milk barn demolished after fire

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - It has been almost four months since the Reed's Dairy production facility on the west side of Idaho Falls caught fire. Crews spent Thursday morning tearing it down.

The production facility was once the Reed's family milk barn. Built in the 1900s, before the fire the building served the Reed family for almost a century.

Owner, Alan Reed, tells us he took a bittersweet last walk through the place that his family built.

"The original building my my, great grandfather built in 1929," Reed said. "And then we've expanded it from there."

"We recently did a remodel...I helped dig the trenches for the drains and for the cement and, and put all the equipment in. There's just a lot of effort that went into it."

As crews began to break the building apart, the community gathered to support the Reed family.

Alan's neighbor, Bill Jensen, has spent most of his life on the wide stretch of road leading Reed's. Some of his fondest memories are walking to the Reed's family shop after a hard day's work.

"I could always walk over here," Jensen told Local News 8. "Dave and Larry and Roy had soda pop over there, Knee High Lemonade or Knee High Grape. And it was the best soda pop in the world."

Alan told us they were grateful for the support and will be glad to have the area cleaned up.

Reed's dairy does have plans to build a new 25-thousand square-foot milk and ice cream production facility in the back lot behind the store.

The area that once housed the historic milk barn will be made into parking lot. The entire demolition should take up to 4 days.

Until then, the dairy maker has leased a warehouse in Rexburg to continue production.