It’s Cool!

            When I was young, my dad and I often hiked up the Indian Trail along the river above the dam. One time he pointed out a good-sized hollow and said that that was where the ice house had been when he was a boy.

            That was when I found out about blocks of ice being cut from the river during the winter, stored in the ice house, and delivered to the ice box in his kitchen. Our ice was delivered by Mr. Trexel and I’m sure he somehow made his ice at his locker plant. But my dad’s ice came from the river. 

            Ice boxes date back to the mid-19^th century and were part of any well-equipped kitchen.  These ice boxes were, in many ways, more elegant looking than modern refrigerators, being crafted of oak with glistening handles and hinges. They had hollow walls lined with either tin or zinc and packed with an insulating material—cork, sawdust, straw or seaweed. Behind one of its two or three doors was a large space for the block of ice. Cold air circulated down and around storage compartments in the lower section. Some models had spigots for draining ice water from a catch pan or holding tank. Cheaper models had a drip pan under the box that had to be emptied daily. The model in the Museum’s Mill Farm House summer kitchen is this type of ice box.
                                      

Mr. Trexel delivered our ice, hooking it up with his ice tongs and slinging it onto his shoulder which was protected by a thick piece of canvas. Dad’s ice was delivered by his uncle by marriage—Lucien Willey. Willey embarked on a number of business enterprises, one of them being a sorghum factory, but for many years he was Humboldt’s Ice Man, owning three wagons for delivering the ice.

Doris Greenwall of Conifer, Colorado recalls that her father delivered ice in Humboldt. Her dad’s Ice Wagon is now in the Clarion Museum. Doris wrote for the Genealogy Newsletter, “Well, it may not be his, but they found his name as an owner of the ice business back in the thirties, so when they needed a name to paint on the old ice wagon they used his—BUCK. I still have a large pair of ice tongs he used for the large blocks.”

Doris recalls, “They cut the ice in the winter. One time he took me with him when they were harvesting ice from a farmer’s pond. They sawed out the blocks; put them on a sled, and then the horses pulled the sled to a building where the ice blocks were stored. This was a large, barn-like building. They used straw for insulation. If they were lucky it lasted till the next year.”

I found an article on “How to Build an Ice House” in The Iowa North West newspaper published in Fort Dodge, November 28, 1865. The author reckons that the “greatest of all luxuries in hot weather is ice,” and goes on, “I will now give you a plan of my ice house, from which any one can build who can use a saw and hammer.”

His ice house was eight by ten feet outside, six feet high. He gives directions on the size of boards and planks to use both inside and outside, as well as covering the cracks with battens, so that the air could not reach the ice. He arranged for drainage and filled the space in the walls and roof with either sawdust or refuse tan bark. “I consider sawdust the best to fill the sides with, but tan-bark, turner’s shavings, chaff, or straw will do. The door should always be on the north side. The cracks in the north gable end should be left open for the purpose of ventilation,” the author advised.

As for the packing between the blocks of ice, “I like snow the best of anything to pack in, filling the cracks between the cakes as solid as possible. I have taken out snow the last of summer as fresh as when it was put in.” Others used sawdust or straw between the cakes of ice.

The author’s ice house held enough for a large family and a dairy of twenty cows. “I don’t believe any dairy man who has had ice to use one year would be without it for ten times the cost.”

Our modern refrigerators cost more than ten times that of an ice house, but they provide ice and storage for the many foods that require refrigeration. And, like The Ice House author, we wouldn’t be without it. 

On your visit to the Humboldt County Museum you will find ice-cutting tools in the barn as well as a cooling tank to be used with flowing well water. An oak ice box, a pair of ice tongs, and an ice card are in the summer kitchen of the Mill Farm House.

Carolyn Saul Logan