Back in the 1940s, the United States War Department needed land in upstate New York to build a military installation called Pine Camp, known today as Fort Drum.

However, the land purchase, which consisted of five villages, led to families losing their homes and thousands of buildings being abandoned.

In more recent times, Fort Drum has created a department meant to not only preserve that history, but ensure people know all about it.

“Every time there is a project that is going to be what we call 'ground disturbing' or any type of excavating, infrastructure change, we bring the archeology team to make sure that that activity is not going to damage or destroy an archeological site,” Fort Drum Cultural Resource Manager Dr. Laurie Rush said.

Earlier this year, Fort Drum was looking to rebuild and possibly reroute a road on one of its back ranges. However, when the archeology team did its inspection, it found five different structures nearby, including one that really caught their attention.

“We’ve never encountered, in the history of our program, in all of the farms that have been lost on Fort Drum, we’ve never encountered a foundation quite like this one,” Rush said.

It was a foundation with troughs, control valves, door stops and more. Some initial research shows it most likely is an old milk co-op used by local farms.

“We know that dates to early 20th Century. We know that this is a time when our local economy is shifting from the iron making business. There was a big iron furnace in Sterlingville (one of the lost villages) and it's shifting to dairy,” Rush explained.

As Rush and her team thought more about it though, they all had the same question. In a spot with no electricity, how did the milk stay cold? Well, this is why it is so important to preserve this kind of find.

“Would we be able to figure out how the water flowed through here, so you would always have a supply of clear, cool stream water?” Rush theorized.

The team even brought in the Fort Drum Fire Department to test the theory. It appears to have worked.

“If these folks had found a way to keep milk cool without any form of electricity and managed to, hopefully, not poison anybody with spoiled milk, maybe we have some lessons to learn about how we might be able to live more sustainably,” Rush said.

Not only will the team preserve the site, there are also numerous artifacts they found, including a winterized horse shoe that shows how the milk got to its destination during the winter.

“What’s interesting about a winter horse shoe, is that it has the cleats, so the horse won’t slip on the ice,” Rush said.

It's history that truly does tell the story.

Among the artifacts the team found on the site were an old hose connection, a clothing iron, gas cans, milk buckets and a plate.