Everything you could ever want to know about the history and making of butter is in the WebExhibit on butter. Who knew there was so much to know about butter? Farm wives would use butter as cash, exchanging their home-churned product for mechandise at the general store. Butter has been stored and shipped in wooden barrels, casks, tubs, and eventually paraffin paper and parchment. During the Yukon gold rush, butter was packaged in cans to keep fresh for shipment to Alaska. Of course there are butter collectibles: butter molds.