Fluid milk processing facilities are generally the same. They all have rooms for milk intake, separating, homogenizing and filling. Broadacre Dairy has one building on the edge of its property that makes it unique among dairy processors: a log cabin where the owner was born.
William B. Weigel, chairman and chief executive officer of Weigel’s, was born in 1938 in that cabin, which stands on the edge of the dairy in Powell, Tenn. In 1918, Weigel’s grandfather bought 600 acres and began a truck farm. In 1931, his sons William W. Weigel, Jr. and Lynn B. Weigel bought four cows and became dairy farmers. In 1936, Broadacre was one of the first dairies in eastern Tennessee to distribute pasteurized milk.