Milk Money

The dairy farm of your imagination is disappearing

- Monte Reel

To lure drivers off interstate 65 at Exit 220, about 70 miles southeast of Chicago, the roadside ads lean hard on wordplay. A metal corncob the size of a speedboat carries the words, VISIT EAR OFTEN! A sign with a cow on it promises A DAIRY GOOD TIME FOR THE FAMILY! Another billboard shows a wide-eyed kid with a fruit-flavored ice cream in his hand: BERRY TEMPTING!

You’re in for even more of this sort of thing if you take the exit. At the BP gas station, the little food market inside is called the Dairycattessen. There’s Central Bark, a green area to let your dogs run around in, and an adjacent Cowfé where you can get cheese sandwiches and milkshakes. The water tower is mottled like a Holstein, but just about every other structure in sight conforms to the red-and-white motif of the classic American barnyard. Among them is a hotel with two towerlike extensions painted to resemble grain silos and an indoor pool with a slide that looks like a big wet cow’s tongue. These attractions, however, are for later, after you visit another barnlike building two doors down. On its face, big white letters in a Playskool-esque font announce: YOUR ADVENTURE STARTS HERE.

This is Fair Oaks Farms, an Indiana tourist attraction designed to entertain road-weary families and deliver them back to the highway reassured that American agriculture is headed in the right direction. With more than 33,000 cows that pump out some 300,000 gallons of milk daily, it’s also quite a bit more. “Welcome to our home, a functioning Modern farm, where our Animals are the center, led by a team with country Charm,” says a sign by the counter where you buy tickets for the tour. “There’s nothing here that’s hidden…. Everything here is from the heart. If you’re ready for Ag-venture, Fair Oaks Farms is the place to start.”