The Horlick Malted Milk Company Industrial Complex at 2100-2234 Northwestern Avenue and 1450-1500 Summit Avenue in Racine was developed between 1885 and 1926 as the headquarters and manufacturing plant of the Horlick Malted Milk Company. Brothers William and James Horlick emigrated from England and established their milk food product company in Racine in 1877. In 1883, William Horlick patented a powdered milk food product consisting of malted barley, wheat extract, and evaporated whole milk that was nutritious, easily digestible, non-perishable, and soluble in water. This invention was the world’s first “malted milk.” Horlick’s malted milk was widely popular across the United States, the United Kingdom and the Greater British Empire, appealing both to consumers looking for a nutritious and digestible infant food and to the general population who enjoyed malted milk in dessert shakes and candies. Malted milk, revered for its non-perishable and lightweight qualities, was carried on numerous high-profile polar expeditions and customarily provided in American and British soldiers’ ration kits during the Spanish-American War of 1898 and World Wars I and II.

Malted milk was manufactured and shipped from the Racine plant to consumers around the nation. The plant has three factories, a malt mill, a grain elevator, two storage warehouses, a garage, a machine shop, and a pattern storehouse. Several of buildings at the Horlick Malted Milk Company Industrial Complex feature Gothic Revival style details such as crenellated parapets, corbelled brick turrets, and castellated towers that recall the castles of the Horlick brothers’ native England. At the company’s peak, the Racine plant employed over 1,000 workers. William Horlick amassed a large fortune due to the international success of malted milk, and engaged in several philanthropic gestures in Racine including the donation of land and funds for a high school, the creation of educational scholarships, and contributions to the city’s YMCA, YWCA, and local hospitals. By the mid-twentieth century, the Horlick Malted Milk Company began to downsize its Racine plant, selling off one of its factories and a large dairy herd in 1951. In 1975, the remaining Horlick Malted Milk Company plant was closed.