Water has several properties. One of these is ice-a liquid becomes a solid at a certain temperature. In the 21st century, most of us likely think of ice only as something to slip and fall on in winter and something to chill our beverages in summer.
However, ice became a significant necessity in the latter half of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century-as a "refrigerant." In Chicago, for example, several companies emerged to engage in the business of cutting blocks of lake ice, storing the ice under sawdust and straw in warehouses, and delivering ice to houses and businesses.
It appears that a common source for Chicago ice were lakes in northern Indiana, particularly in LaPorte county. Indeed, my parent's cottage property on one of such lakes was subject to an old easement along the lake shore for harvesting of ice by a packing company. Most likely, Indiana ice was shipped to Chicago by railroad.
Prior to the electric compressor refrigerator we use today, homes used blocks of ice in their "ice boxes"-a term still often used to refer to a modern refrigerator. Frequently, such old ice boxes are viewed as desirable antiques by collectors, and thereby retain a life in the 21st century.
By the 1950s, sales of block ice had diminished, along with the ice companies. I can recall two exceptions: milk delivery trucks still rumbled down neighborhood streets, cooled by large blocks of ice which dripped melting water wherever they stopped. And a vacation car trip necessitated a metal cooler in the trunk for beverages and sandwiches, chilled by a block of ice which took up half of the cooler and soaked the sandwiches with melted water. Ice would be purchased from gas station vending machines along the route, the machines emblazoned with "ICE" in huge red letters. If one visits today Cedar Pass Lodge in the South Dakota Badlands, one still will see a large ice vending machine. Though inoperable, it stands as a Mount Rushmore of the ice industry.
Yes, the ice man go-eth, but memories linger.