BUY AND SELL DAIRY CATTLE
About Clear View Cattle Company
The company had its beginning in Norway, when young Henry Hovland left his birth place in the mountains where Hovland, Norway was located. Henry was about 19 years of age in that year of 1885. The trip to the United States of America was a long one, but Henry didn’t mind too much, as he met his future wife on the long ocean voyage to New York.
We’re not exactly sure when he and Grandma were married, but we do know that it didn’t take them long to travel to a lovely little town in the heart of Iowa called Story City. There, they had the pleasure of being neighbors with a lot of other Norwegians that were all beginning their lives in the wonderful new land called America.
Somehow, Grandpa was able to borrow enough money to buy a farm and start a small dairy. “Small”, in the early nineteen hundreds was two cows. However, within a few years, the dairy had grown to 75 cows, all milked by hand by six hired men, and Henry’s operation supplied almost all the milk for the thriving little town.
Alvin, the oldest of Henry’s three sons, struck out for himself in 1935, Al was a consummate horseman and an extremely sharp dairyman. In addition to these talents he was a natural born salesman and loved the people business. So with his reputation as a dairy breeder and judge, it was natural for him to gravitate into the marketing of cattle, where for the next 27 years, he was instrumental in helping many Iowa dairymen to succeed.
In 1962, Alvin’s youngest son, John took over the business which had evolved into an operation that was supplying dairy cattle to dairies from one end of the U.S. to the other. John, a pilot, found himself looking down at many parts of the U.S. from the small company plane, as he visited suppliers, growers and dairies in other states.
John is still the owner and manager of the company and, in addition to many other duties, finds time to write a monthly news letter which goes to our large customer mailing list.