I had them when I was a kid in the 70s. The “milko” (sorry, we’re Aussies - we have to do that to words) had a truck with a novelty horn that went “MOOOOOOOO-OOO” as he came up out of the valley early in the morning.
I lived in a small town outside of Victoria, BC, where milk was delivered until relatively recently. For awhile they even went back to recyclable glass milk jugs instead of plastic bags.
So milk was delivered to our door throughout my childhood, and I’m only 28.
A couple of people have asked why the milk was delivered to the house and couldn’t you just buy it at the store? I think the times then were much more service-oriented and convenience-oriented then than now.
We had milk delivery in our area up until about the mid 60s. But there were many other home delivery services as well. StGermain mentions potato chip companies, we had one that home-delivered in our area (“Charles’ Chips”, I believe it was.) There were also home-delivered produce vendors, dry-cleaning companies that would pick up from your home, and don’t forget full-service gas stations – they were all full service in those days, and they didn’t mark up the price more to compensate.
I think some of the door-to-door services might have been more popular in those days because fewer women knew how to drive, and those who were full-time, stay-at-home moms needed the convenience of home delivery.
We still have deliveries too (Co-op Dairies, so it’s socialist milk 
)
I think they survive because it’s still more convenient for many people - a four-pint carton makes for a sore arm when added to all your other shopping, if you’re walking home. And if you’ve got a family who’re all eating cereal each morning, you’ll get through a fair bit of milk.
My family also went through a lot of milk. For a number of reasons, we didn’t keep soda or juice in the house, so our options were milk and water. I guess it was just more convenient to get the milk delivered so my mom wouldn’t have to go to the store all the time.
I guess it’s like having the paper delivered at home. Sure, you can go to the store and buy it, but it’s easier to have someone bring it to you.
Robin
I remember it from about… '97 and before that, we used to have a little crate for it with a thing on the front for showing how much you wanted, they were glass bottles with foil caps. Red was full milk, blue was semi-skimmed, I don’t know about skimmed because my family never bought it. My dad always used to have red cap, my mum would have blue cap and we kids would have red cap too. Ahh memories…
One drawback with those foil caps were the neighbourhood Blue Tits . The little buggers would break through the foil and steal the cream . There was even a documentary on the BBC which showed one bird learning the trick and then passing it on to his friends.
There was a strip in the Beano about that, where all the bash street kids became birds and the fat one did that and got stuck… Man I remember some random stuff…
Exact same experience, only about 30 miles east (Reading), with Tulpehocken Dairies. Somewhere in the mid-70s they stopped delivering but the dairy store was only a mile away and you could take the empty bottles back (strangely, we had a local soda distributor (A-Treat) that also reused – not recycled but actually sterilized and refilled – big glass bottles).
I now feel the need to belt out a chorus of Ernie, The Fastest Milkman in the West, but shall restrain myself.
In the 60s in Oakville, Ontario, we had a milk man, bread man, dry cleaning man, and knife sharpening man. That pretty much died out once two-car families became the norm.
My grandma still has to fight the birds for the top cream.
I don’t have a regular milkman now, but if I wanted, the newspaper guy would bring me milk. And bagels too.
And I remember, sometimes the cow would lift her foot and knock over the bucket…oh , sorry, wrong thread :rolleyes:
We still have milkmen here. I see their trucks a lot.
But now, we have better. We have all our groceries delivered by www.simondelivers.com. Like the milkman, but he brings Pringles and hamburger and banannas, too.
(But yes, I remember glass bottles brought by the milkman).
(I think that may have been a Minnesota law, as well - non yellow margerine - my mother talks about it. My guess is that with the commercialization of food, the big food companies (Land o Lakes is huge in Minnesota) lobbied to have it changed and were stronger by that point in time than the dairy lobby.)
Margarine History - including Minnesota and Wisconsin not repealing their anti-yellow margarine laws until the 1960s.
Back in the 50’s and 60’s in Coventry we not only had milk and bread delivered but also soft drinks ( Corona ) and beer . The beer was delivered by a company called Davenports in one pint , screw-top bottles . Every week their van used to come round for the empties and leave a fresh supply . Their motto was :-
Beer At Home Means Davenports I can even remember it came in wooden crates that held 12 bottles.
Back in the 50s, we had milk delivered from a truck with huge blocks of ice in the back, rather than refrigeration. We always used to hitch a ride on the rear bumper. The milk was left in the double-door compartment in the kitchen wall, which we called the “milk chute.” The glass bottle had a paper cap with pleated sides, covering a cardboard cap with a little tab to pull it off.
After milk delivery stopped, my mother used to keep a can of bacon drippings in the milk chute (I don’t know why), until one Halloween some kids got hold of it and smeared the grease all over the windows in the neighborhood.
We also had a farmer come around with eggs and chickens. The eggs sometimes had smears of poop and little pieces of straw stuck to them. It wasn’t unusual to find double, or even triple, yolks. The chickens were totally intact, except for the feathers. We kids used to fight over who would get to decapitate the chicken and clean out the inside.
And yes, doctors made house calls back then.
I’m too young to have had milk delivered to my home, but this brought back memories! When I was very little we used to buy pop at a dingy little store near my house called Towne Club Pop and it was exactly like you described - we’d bring in the empties so they could refill them and get full bottles. I’d always get a bottle of cream soda, and I can taste it even now… mmm…
That store closed when I was about five, and I remember thinking how odd it was the first few times my mom brought cases of Coca-Cola home from the store. You could buy pop in a grocery store??? 
And, getting back on topic, my mom loves to talk about “the old days” when milk was delivered. She told me that she didn’t even know you could buy milk from the grocery store until she got married and moved out of town (in 1971!).
My dad built one into the side of our garage. There was a door from the kitchen directly into the garage, so milk could be picked up in any weather without opening the front door to the tiny and almost unsheltered porch.
We had the Helms bread truck in those days, too. And when I was a kid it was usual for the doctor to come to the house. When we kids were sick we didn’t have to sit in a doctor’s ante room with a bunch of other sick people and swap germs.
I just turned 62. I’m surprised I still remember this stuff. 
Wow! This really goes back. When I was about three we lived in a postwar housing development of railroad flats (so called because the single-wall units looked like boxcars) that were heated with coal stoves. The only refrigeration most people could afford was an icebox. I don’t remember the ice man, but I do remember the muddy grime Mom was always trying to clean up when the overflowing drip pan from the icebox dribbled out and combined with the ever present coal dust on the linoleum floor. Mom could sweep several times a day and not keep that black dust completely off the floor.
When I was a kid the milk was delivered every day. My mother used to siphon off the cream and rebottle that because it looked horrible in tea. We had a weekly delivery of soft drinks and my parents for years got a weekly delivery of cigarettes which were loaded into a “machine” on the back of the pantry door. There was a guy who used to come round selling all sorts of things who I think we used to call “The Rawley’s Man”. He always left a roll of mints for each of the kids. There was even a woman who had a business doing door to door clothing sales. She used to turn up in a van with racks and racks of womens and kids clothes - stuff that you didn’t see in the shops. My mother seemed to regularly buy stuff for herself or us kids. Possibly a promising business idea for rural areas today.