January 4, 1987
By Susie Dewey
Vigo County Historical Society
Iceman brought summer relief
A pair of tongs and the ice card on display in the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley arouse questions in young visitors and evoke nostalgia in older ones.
Both were common items in the days before mechanical refrigeration. Hot summer weather was made bearable by these two items and the old-fashioned ice-box.
The ice-box, or ice-chest, was an insulated box or piece of furniture. A block of ice was placed in a compartment with air circulating about it. As the ice melted, the water drained into a pan below.
Foods were put in the ice-box to preserve them, and ice was chipped from the block to cool such favorite drinks as lemonade and iced tea. Bottles of root beer were cooled on the bottom shelf of the ice-box. When it was mechanized, the ice-box received a new name: the refrigerator. Electric or gas refrigerators were not common appliances in American kitchens until the 1940s.
With the coming of warm weather, the ice truck, or the ice wagon, appeared on the streets. During the winter months the same wagon usually delivered coal, because most sellers of ice were both ice and coal merchants. In Terre Haute the manufacture and sale of ice were important parts of the business community and necessary services to prevent food spoilage and contamination.
Children welcomed the ice wagon for the chips and slivers that resulted from the scoring of the big blocks. These were special treats on hot days. The cry--”Ice man coming!”--could be heard as the wagon or truck turned the corner.
The housewife judged her needs as well as her budget when she put the ice card in the window. Affluent homes had special openings through which ice could be put in the box without the ice man entering. Usually, though, the ice man entered the home through the back or kitchen door.
The ice card in the museum is black for 100 pounds, green for 75 pounds, white for 50 pounds, and red for 15 pounds. The back of the card is blank. The card was the property of the Merchants Ice and Cold Storage Co. of Terre Haute.
If the housewife did not place a card in the window, the ice man knew that ice was not required that day. The colors let him see the amount to deliver while he was some distance from the house.
The ice man became a part of the popular culture of the day. Because he visited homes daily, or at least semi-weekly, when the man of the house was away at work, he became the source of jokes and innuendo. Eugene O’Neill titled one of his plays, “The Ice-Man Cometh.”
The typical ice man had to be a strong and burly man with well-developed arms and shoulders. After his vehicle was loaded, often with a 1,000-pound block of ice, he had to chip smaller blocks of the appropriate weight. He used a simple ice pick with a great force behind it to do this job. The ice house either had an ice-scorer or froze the ice with the markings.
When the ice was chipped into the required block, the iceman use the heavy tongs to carry the block into the kitchen. The tongs, with two handles and sharp points, are heavy to life even without the added weight of the ice.
Beside the tongs and ice card is a photograph of a Home Packing Ice Co. horse-drawn ice wagon. Visitors who recognize any of the people in the picture are asked to notify museum staff.
While many modern housewives wistfully wish for the return of some of the older, simpler ways of running a household, it is doubtful many would exchange their refrigerators for the ice man with his card and tongs. The routine of emptying the pan beneath the ice box, putting up a card, worrying about food spoilage and chipping ice for cold drinks has little appear today.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.