The Old Ice House

is probably gone; torn down or abandoned by now; not much use for those today. Most folks have means of making their own ice in their own homes. As a kid growing up in NW Arkansas, my folks used to make weekend trips to Ozark to buy groceries and ice for our Ice Box. Refrigerators were expensive in those days, but without electricity we wouldn’t get one for a few more years yet.

The Ice Box was an insulated wooden cabinet with two or three compartments; upper, where the lid opened the top to allow a block of ice to be stored in the metal lined compartment, and a lower, also lined with metal where food needing refrigeration was placed. This device was the predecessor to modern day refrigerators that use Freon to make the cooling work.

The old Ice Box worked by a process of “cold air falling”. With the upper compartment filled with ice, the closed door chilled the air and trapped in the cold, which fell from the top to the bottom compartment through slots, cooling milk, eggs, cheese and other foodstuff.

The chunk of ice in the top section never lasted long and would be completely melted in a few days.

I loved seeing the ice men at work cutting out blocks of ice! They would bring out a large, square chunk from the freezer; about 3 feet cubed, hung from an elevated rail with giant tongs and drop it near the dock. It would go skidding along the old wood slab flooring. They would then take an ice pick and start jabbing holes in the ice block in a straight line. This would break off a chunk of ice about 12 inches thick by 3 feet long. Depending upon how much Dad wanted they would cut it again.

I loved watching the ice chips flake off in the sunlight as the ice pick fell. I never thought much about where the ice came from; I just assumed it came from a room somewhere.

Also, ice tongs were very cool!