by Mary E. MortimerBefore electric refrigeration, blocks of ice were used to keep food from spoiling. In the winter months ice harvesting from lakes and ponds was a significant business. Once the ice was thick enough, it was sawed into large chunks and stored in buildings that were double walled and insulated with straw or sawdust. If the lake was covered with snow, a horse and scraper were used to remove the snow. It was hard cold work.
In January 1873, the Bellefontaine Republican newspaper reported the Silver Lake Ice & Coal Co. had two ice houses full and they had sold 5,700 tons of ice. They still had one icehouse to fill and expected to sell 50,000 tons of ice. “The ice was over a foot in thickness, and very clear.”
The Silver Lake Ice & Coal Co. employed about a hundred hands in cutting and packing ice. The ice was first cut with an ice plow, transversely, in cakes 44 x 22 inches in size. The cakes were detached by means of crowbars and floated along a channel to the foot of the slides. Then they are taken out by men using socket-poles, and placed in the slide, which extended from the lake up into the icehouse.
In the early 1900s, ice sold for 40 cents per 100 lbs. to private consumers. Homeowners had ice boxes in their homes and purchased blocks of ice to help preserve their food. For home delivery of ice, the resident hung a sign in a window, or on a door, that stated how much ice was needed. The square sign had a different number in each corner, 25, 50, 75, or 100 lbs. The number at the top of the sign told the driver how much ice to deliver.
The Silver Lake Ice & Coal Co. reported in 1904 they had arranged for the traction line to furnish cars to transport ice from Silver Lake to their Bellefontaine facility. Transporting ice by railcar instead of using teams of horses was a great savings in time. Ice was also harvested from lakes by the railroad to insulate box cars shipping perishable foods. The Lewistown Reservoir also provided large quantities of ice for Logan County.
In the autobiography of A.A. Gearheardt, he wrote about being hired to clear snow from the ice on Silver Lake in 1907 when he was 14 years old. “I was told to go out there and do the best that I could, and to dress warm. The next morning, with all the clothes on that I possessed, and with feed for the horses, and my own dinner, I headed for Silver Lake.
I found the fresno that I was told to use to scrape the snow off the ice and hitched my team to it. The snow was frozen to the ice and as fast as I broke it loose, the high wind blew it away across the lake. I had to watch myself on that big lake as that ice was mighty slippery and I didn’t want no accidents to the team or myself either.
I worked till I thought it was dinner time, and I drove back to my wagon and unhitched the team. I divided the hay and corn between the horses, then looked to my own dinner which was frozen solid, coffee and everything. I hustled around and found something to burn and soon had a small blaze going. After a time, I ate most of my dinner.
I hitched the horses back up to the fresno and worked until I thought it was about 4:00. The lake was pretty well cleared by that time. I hitched the horses back up to my wagon and headed for Bellefontaine to the Sliver Lake Ice & Coal Co. office on W. Columbus Ave. I went to the Superintendent’s office and reported my work. He said, “have you any idea of how cold it was today?” And I replied, “no sir, I know it was cold because my dinner froze up and I had to thaw it out before I could eat.” He then told me; “it was 27 degrees below zero!”
Ice was also manufactured as early as 1894 by the Horn & Son Artificial Ice Plant. The Horn plant had 130 cans with a capacity of about 210 lbs. each. The ice took about 48 hours to freeze solid. The plant had a normal capacity of about six tons of ice per day but could increase to 7 – 7 1/2 tons per day if needed. In 1904, Abial Horn sold his ice business to the Bellefontaine Milk & Ice Company.
The Citizens Ice & Supply Co., located at the corner of Walker St. and W. High Ave., was incorporated in October 1903. By December 1904, they reported they were “manufacturing ice of the highest quality and making many tons daily and had 1,000 barrels of apples in cold storage at their plant.”
The Citizen’s Ice plant had five storage rooms and 400 ice cans, each with 300 lbs. of capacity. They ran one hundred gallons of water per minute or 145,000 gallons per day. In 1921, they had three trucks and three wagons for daily ice delivery and employed 20 people. In June 1923, the Citizen’s Ice & Supply Co. added a new storage facility with a capacity of 3,000 tons of ice.
In the early 1940s, the Bellefontaine Ice & Fuel Co. operated in an adjoining building and Citizens Ice changed to the Citizens Coal & Supply Co. In February 1945, the Bellefontaine Ice & Fuel Co. took ownership of both companies. Carter Steel bought the Bellefontaine Ice & Fuel building in January 1959.
Visit the Logan County History Center at 521 E. Columbus Ave., Bellefontaine, Ohio 43311, to learn more interesting aspects of Logan County History. The History Center is open for tours Wednesday – Sunday from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm.