Where Was the Ice Company in Lincoln Ne

Nowadays a manmade lake in Saunders County is part of a refreshment area, but the lake itself was not made for recreation. It was made for ice. Memphis State Recreation Area is a fine place for fishing and boating, but IT's also an unusual bequest of Nebraska's meatpacking industry.

(Higher up: women pose with an ice pole in a circa 1910 photograph by John Nelson of Ericson, Cornhusker State. Behind them, men are harvesting water ice for storage. RG3542-95-12)

For many years the cutting of ice from rivers and lakes was an important winter industry, especially in eastern Nebraska. Just when the natural ice industry began in this state is unknown, but IT was well established by 1890. Large quantities of ice were needed for the meat-packing business manufacture, for railroad refrigerator cars, and for home use.

The icebox car is one of the great innovations that transformed the cattle industry. The first refrigerated boxcar was old in New York State in 1851, simply the kickoff applicative "reefers" didn't appear until an engineer for the Swift Companion designed an insulated, ventilated car in 1878. This car held ice at the overstep of the car so that the algid air would flow downwards. The meat was crowded at the backside of the car to ascertain a modest middle of solemnity and stableness on the tracks. Forthwith marrow packers could ship their products crosswise the United States.

Merely they required icing. Lots of it. The Armour and Company Icehouse was built in 1897-98 northwest of Memphis, Nebraska. It was one of the largest icehouses in the nation, measuring approximately 180 feet wide, 700 feet long, and 52 feet high. A 300-horsepower steamer locomotive and two generators provided electrical power.

The only practical way to get ice was to harvest it during the winter from lakes and rivers. A manmade lake of about 100 estate was filled each fall from Ag Creek. Harvesting began when the ice was eight inches thick. It was scored, then sawed with horse-drawn ice saws. The blocks were then poled on an open channel to elevators and into ice rooms, where they were compact in sawdust. In the jump the lake was drained, going a small fish pond.

The shabu was used in refrigerated railcars and meatpacking plants, and was also oversubscribed to businesses in eastern Nebraska. Approximately 100,000 tons of ice were harvested in 1899. IT was common to ship 100 surgery more railcars of internal-combustion engine each calendar month during the summertime. Twenty-v employees lived near, and 300 work force were hired during the toiling season. Most of them stayed in the "Armour Hotel," which actually was more of a overlarge bunkhouse than a proper hotel.

The Armour Icehouse wasn't the only big operation in Nebraska. One of the largest and top-grade known was run past the Crete Mills at Crete. At the start ice was cut from the Wide Blue River, but equally the demand increased, two lakes were constructed on the west side of the river. In addition, a large icehouse was built. During the season 75 to 100 men were exploited to perforated and handle the ice. Most of the Crete ice was sold to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, which shipped the freshly gash ice in specially designed "ice service" cars to various icing stations along the railroad. A many As 100 cars of ice were shipped daily from Crete during the frappe cutting flavour.

By about 1910 Union Pacific claimed to own the world's largest methamphetamine hydrochloride house in North Platte River. History Nebraska RG2154-6-58

Other ice cutting operations were located around the state. Southward of Hastings, "Crystal Lake" was created by damming a portion of the Big Blue River north of Ayr. Yet another operation was located on the Republican near Siege of Orleans, and many other small cut operations supplied local areas with ice for home and store use.

One drawback of natural ice was that the annual harvest was compromising to warm winters. "At that place is a panic among the water ice dealers, brewers, butchers and packers but now," the Maha Daily Bee according on January 9, 1882, "and every kind of scheme is existence devised to set about ice for next mollify's use." An unseasonably warm December meant that "the nearest noted ice supply is Manitoba."

Omaha mayor James Boyd owned an shabu house near the Missouri with a storage capacity of 6,000 tons. As a last recourse he was prepared to commit in a new $20,000 "cooling machine" to blow cold air done the rooms and fall the loss of stored ice attributable melting.

Mind that this was just cardinal year after the infamous "Snow Overwinter" of 1880-81, the subject of Laura Ingalls Wilder's popular 1940 book, The Long Wintertime. Crosswise the Great Plains of North America, settlers were learning what Native residents had long silent: the part's climate was prone to extremes.

Fortunately, the weather soon turned colder. On Jan 18 the Bee reported that the "ice harvesting began here last workweek, with blocks of ice eight inches thick." Apparently the warm brave was posing a nationally job for the ice trade. On January 26 the Bee noted: "Thirty degrees below zero was recorded on the W. H. Hudson yesterday, and the ice harvesters' hallelujah is being loud sung for forty miles along the river."

By the turn of the century, physical science refrigeration was comely more practical, and Boodle meatpacking plants adopted ammonia-cycle infrigidation. In Nebraska, the Valley Ice Company of Lincoln began manufacturing ice in 1901. The ice was clear and pure and desirable for home use—fit for a cool glass of lemonade— but "harvested ice" was still cheaper for railroad use.

Memphis lake ice was also aforesaid to constitute better than river ice, axenic adequate for dwelling house use. Armour workers accustomed debilitate their lake every spring and re-dredge it. The icehouse burned in 1921, putting an end to summertime storage at the site. After that, Memphis ice was loaded directly onto railcars in cold upwind. In 1930 Memphis State of matter Recreation Area was established at the site of the icehouse and lake. No chicken feed is harvested these days. Or else, the Nebraska Plot & Parks Commission stocks the lake with fish for anglers. A historical marker at the website commemorates the lake's history.

Crystal Lake in Adams County is likewise now a State Recreation Area, and has its own arts marker ceremonial occasion its ice harvest history. After its ice trade days concluded, the lake eventually silted in, but was dredged and cleared in 1976.

Despite advancing technology, harvested ice had a surprisingly long history. It remained unrefined into the 1950s, when mechanically refrigerated railcars began to replace ice-based cars. Today little carnal manifest remains of the big railroad ice houses of the past, merely the historical markers remain to tell the write up. (Find them all with our free historical marker app!)

An Armor refrigerated car, believably in Omaha, 1935. History Cornhusker State RG3882-50-168

Where Was the Ice Company in Lincoln Ne

Source: https://history.nebraska.gov/blog/cool-nebraskas-ice-industry