Who remembers the fleet of Preston Milk Trucks that traveled US 281 from Burkburnett down to San Antonio, delivering raw milk in tankers and other products in refrigerated van type trailers?

Seems like all the trucks were Freightliner Cabovers, painted a light blue color.

They could be seen many times daily rolling down US 281. Sometime to break up the monotony, you’d see them traveling down I-35 through Austin. I think some also were going down into the Rio Grande Valley.

They were running at least in the later 1960s and continued until into the 1970s and maybe later. They were hauling a lot of milk.

I’ve read about a scandal involving the Preston family and other milk producers price fixing contracts going to Texas and Oklahoma schools. I’m not sure if that is what brought to an end the very familiar trucks we all used to see.

Since I hung out at the Truck Stop and Cafe, I would befriend some of those fellows. The only one I recall now is OJ Daniels. I even took him to Smithwick so he could shoot a deer one season. We field dressed it and I took him back to town and helped him load it in the back of that otherwise empty reefer trailer (that’s refrigerated trailer for any of you novice truckers), and he headed out to Burkburnett.