WATERMAN, Ill. (CBS) — This Thanksgiving is the last for the Ho-Ka Turkey Farms in Waterman, Illinois after 90 years.
The Kauffman family, who have owned and run the farm since its founding, has made the decision to step down from growing, farming, processing, and selling turkeys.
Ho-Ka – short for Howard Kauffman Turkey Farms – was founded in 1933 by Howard Kauffman. According to the DeKalb County History Center, he raised the first flock of 300 turkeys at the farm on Leland Road in Waterman.
According to the history center, Ho-Ka was thought to be the biggest turkey farm in the state as of 2020. It produced roughly 70,000 turkeys annually for sale in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
But this year, Robert Kauffman – son of the founder – decided to retire. The farm continued to sell frozen goods despite not raising turkeys this year, according to its website.
In years past, the Ho-Ka Turkey farm was the scene for an annual Thanksgiving tradition on CBS 2. Every year, the late Bob Wallace traveled to the farm in the west to have a close-up look at its herd of gobbling turkeys.
The above video is from Wallaces visit 40 years ago. It first aired on Friday, Nov. 11, 1983.
Wallace got a little lesson from Ho-Ka general manger Tom Klopfenstein about turkey behavior. When the turkeys normally red heads start turning blue, theyre getting excited.
Klopfenstein told Wallace it is only male turkeys that do the gobbling. He went on to say that while male turkeys just charge ahead, females are more intelligent and sly because they stay back to protect themselves.
Wallace stood in the middle of the flock for his stand-up shot, and the turkeys weren’t particularly hostile, but they weren’t exactly acting like themselves either. Similar to certain TV shows involving symbolic turkeys, they all stepped on the microphone cord, made noise, and insisted on being in the photo.
However, the archive reveals that Wallace did this every year when he gave the turkeys the microphone and asked them to greet Harry Porterfield, Don Craig, and Walter Jacobson, the anchors of CBS 2. Unfortunately, our anchor’s response to seeing a gobbling flock of turkeys was lost on the archive tape used to create this.
Twelve days later on Nov. 23, 1983 – the day before Thanksgiving – Wallace had another report on turkeys. This one was from the kitchen of the old Lawrys the Prime Rib restaurant at 100 E. Ontario St.
Lawrys executive chef Hans Aeschbacher told Wallace that chefs have “blue blood” in addition to some basic tips for seasoning, cooking, and carving the bird. He made this statement while sticking his finger into a gravy made of pan drippings and port wine and tasting it, even though it looked to be boiling.
The retail store at Ho-Ka Turkey Farms will remain closed until Monday of the following week, after which it will only be open by appointment. An auction is also planned on Dec. 1-2 at the farm to sell off farm equipment the first day, and turkey processing equipment the second.
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Adam Harrington is a web producer at CBS News Chicago.
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