Do you remember those hot summer afternoons when the iceman made his deliveries in the 60's? When I was a boy, I use to run up to the Iceman just as he split a block to ask for a chip of cool refreshing frozen water. Those were the days in Ohio. Unlike today with machines turning out six tons or more of ice a day. When I was a boy, they use to harvest ice, fine, hard, and clear, lake ice was the best. Harvested in January, February, and March, large blocks of ice were stored in ice houses that kept the ice all year long sometimes two. Mother would place a four sided card in the window "telling" the Iceman how large a block we needed. Father said not to eat the ice because according to medical practitioners, eating ice or drinking ice water would promote tooth decay, inflammation of the stomach and dyspeptic diseases. But oh so cool were those precious chips and fluid. Ice came to my family's rescue in the winter of 1869. Father was sick and unable to work and mother too frail to take on any more sewing so I went back to work. I usually worked most of the year and winter had always been a time for my schooling but we needed the money.
A mason's apprentice, I had the build to take on the tough frigid job of "Splitter"at $2.00 a day. I stood outside at the base of the steam conveyor belt splitting six inch thick sheets of ice from the river, into 6" x 24" x 36" cakes and then up the conveyor they went to the men in the icehouse stacking layer upon layer. I learned from the "Old Hands" that depending on where an ice harvester worked, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Maine, ice was harvested in 6, 12, and 30 inches cakes. Cakes larger than 30" could not be handled. Typically consumption for Cincinnati was around 225,000 tons annually, 77,000 tons alone accounted for residential use. Average personal consumption was 500 pounds a year. The brewers and packing houses accounted for the rest. With the exception of 7,000 to 10,000 tons for river boats and railroads, little of the ice left the city. To hear them tell it, "Sandusky was the Ice Capitol of the World. Producing cakes clear as plate glass". Selling from $1.00 to $6.00 per ton, ice almost always went up to $40.00 per ton during poor harvests or ice famines. The expected future of ice was, as more and more markets opened to the west, ice was ice and only so much was available even with a 12% annual loss.
The brewers and packers had begun to invested in a new mechanical process called "Artificial Ice". The experimental technique of making Ice artificially had been discovered in France about 1750, but was lost due to the Revolution, as much of the scholarly aristocracy had lost their heads. The technology was rediscovered in New York about 1850 but did not come into wide acceptance until the 1880's. None the less, ice had helped get my family through that bitter winter. Receiving my Journeymen's papers, I went west seeking my fortune. A new and thriving community that I had read much about, had peaked my interest. Tombstone it was said was the last of the big silver strikes in the west. Skilled workmen were needed in all fields.
Arriving in Tombstone, Arizona Territory in 1880, I found a dirty, dusty little town, nothing like what had been reported in the newspapers about the upstart community. Wood framed shacks with canvas roofs line the main street. A fire trap if ever there was one. One of the buildings, a bit more substantial than the rest, was the Eagle Brewery serving all types of beers, including ice brewed beer. But how? On my way west, absent were the numerous fresh water lakes and full flowing rivers, and yet a brewery. My question was soon answered.
Mr. James Lamb, an entrepreneur, had built an artificial ice machine in Watervale, the only source of fresh water close to Tombstone. The Machine produced six tons of ice a day and had been built by the Arctic Ice Machine Company of Toledo, Ohio. The only such concern in the world. To my surprise, these machines are at work in Cuba, Mexico, and Brazil. The mechanical marvel uses a steam engine to run a compressor that uses anhydrous ammonia, a "refrigerant". The refrigerant is compressed and caused to circulate through a system of pipes and radiators, where one is hot and one is cold. Though I do not quite understand the principles, the cold one is located in a ice making room and the hot one is outside. The whole of the equipment is housed in a substantial building. Only one other ice machine exists in Arizona and it is in Phoenix. It produces only a half a ton of ice a day which is delivered in a wheel barrow, and sells for 7 cents a pound. I am told that morticians in Phoenix use ice to keep their clients from ruining the ceremonies by warming to the occasion. Ice has once again come to my rescue. The lack of any brick let alone any planned brick structures, has me scrambling to get work. Mr. Lamb has need of an experienced Iceman. More to come...
ARIZONA STATE PARK, TOMBSTONE
WEB PAGE MONTHLY STORY. BY: LARRY L. McFALL and ART AUSTIN
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