How ice harvesting thrived — and then disappeared — in southern Colorado
share
PALMER LAKE, Colo. — The first introduction to the bygone industry of ice harvesting for kids born in the 21st century might be through the opening scene of Disney’s “Frozen”, where a young Kristoff and his reindeer Sven accompany a team of Arendelle ice men singing their way through a harvest.
While the kingdom of Arendelle might be fictional, ice harvesting is very real.
The centuries-old practice was once an economic mainstay in many Colorado towns, even though the industry was put on ice after the arrival of more advanced refrigeration and freezing technologies.
“We think of corn as a money-making crop… well, ice was not only that, but it was the major means of employment for the farmer and the rancher,” said Roger Davis, the director of the Lucretia Vaile Museum in Palmer Lake.
“It kept things in [Palmer Lake] moving and alive.”
There are no ice harvesters left in the area today, though the practice still exists in a few spots around the U.S., mostly continued for the sake of tradition over necessity or business.
However, some areas, like South Bristol, Maine, have seen these practices threatened due to rising temperatures.
Warming temperatures in Colorado caused by climate change — much of which is attributed to human influence — reduce snowpack accumulations and the number of days below freezing in the state.
Emissions from many of the technologies that made traditional ice harvesting methods obsolete, like refrigeration and Henry Ford’s automobile engines, are also contributing to climate change, making ice harvesting more difficult today.
“During the peak harvesting era, it would be -10 to -28 degrees almost every night from the peak winter months ending around the 1st of February,” said Davis. “Now, you don’t have temperatures like that here.”
The American ice cutting industry dates back to the early 1800s. At the time, ice was a commodity for the wealthy, as transportation and storage was laborious and expensive. Enslaved workers built a designated ice house for Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation.
The industry quickly expanded along the East Coast and through the Great Lakes region, and by the mid-19th century, the U.S. transported hundreds of thousands of tons of ice as far as Rio de Janeiro and Hong Kong.
Ice became the country’s second-largest export by the late 1880s, following only cotton. The U.S. and Canada had moved over 25 million tons of ice total by 1886, and entrepreneurs made fabulously wealthy from ice like New England’s “Ice King” helped Boston Harbor become a world leader in ice distribution.
Ice harvesting around Palmer and Monument Lake peaked around the mid-to-late 1800s as well, when lakes and ponds froze so thickly that locals could harvest two to three crops of ice in a single winter (one crop being one lake or pond’s-worth of ice).
The Towns of Palmer Lake and Monument do not monitor ice thickness, but Monument Lake often freezes enough to support ice fishing (more than four inches).
In order to be harvestable, ice needed to be about 24 to 27 inches thick, according to Davis.
Harvesters, who were often off-season farmers and ranchers, used horse-drawn ice plows to cut parallel grooves across the lake. They then used crosscut saws (similar to crosscut lumber saws, but with only one handle) to slice roughly two-foot blocks — also known as a cake — of ice from the grooves.
Once the cakes were cut, harvesters hauled the blocks of ice to a cutting area along the edge of the lake or pond. Workers used saws, ice picks and spudding bars (which resemble small tritons) to further divide ice blocks and hoist them onto a conveyor belt that moved ice cakes to ice storage houses.
The storage houses were wooden sheds with double-layered walls insulated with sawdust. The largest shed, often constructed by rail companies that transported the ice, like the American Refrigerated Transit Company (ART), stretched 300 feet long and 40 feet wide, said Davis.
Palmer Lake’s first ice house, a square, wooden structure placed along the railroad, dates back to the early 1870’s. It is no longer standing.
Farmers usually stored their own ice in much smaller sheds dug into the ground.
“Most times [ice harvesting] was commercial, but lots of farmers with a pond would harvest their own ice and use it all winter, maybe even to the next June or July, for refrigerating food,” said Davis.
Roger Davis is the fourth generation of Davises to occupy their small family home in Palmer Lake, a southern Colorado town of about 2,600. His great-grandfather bought the property as a summer home around 1888.
Davis and his wife took ownership of the house around 1956 and, inspired by the family connection to Palmer Lake, they became leaders of the Palmer Lake Historical Society and Palmer Lake’s Lucretia Vaile Museum (named for a local donor), both of which were started by Davis’ grandmother, Marian McIntyre-McDonough.
Davis uses collections of old written records and photographs matched with accounts from long-time locals to uncover more about the town’s ice industry, and through his learnings, he has helped curate exhibits at the museum showcasing the ice harvesting trade.
Big harvests, like those pulled from the nearby Monument Lake, were loaded into larger ice storage areas for rail transit. Monument Lake’s near 430-acre expanse could produce three ice crops in a season, filling five large ice houses with ice that was shipped as far as California and New York.
“American Refrigerated Transit built a spur by the ice storage near Monument Lake, and they would fill boxcars with ice to keep produce and meals fresh,” said Davis.
At its peak, Monument Lake alone employed around 30 to 50 workers, according to Davis, many of whom were out-of-work farmers looking for money while waiting out the winter.
During the Great Depression, the ice harvest stimulated Palmer Lake’s rural economy, providing jobs and a steady source of income to other businesses located in the area.
Simultaneously, rapid developments in motor-powered technology began reshaping the Colorado ice trade.
Motorized blades powered by Model T engines replaced the original hand and horse-pulled crosscut saws, and around the middle of the 20th century, domestic refrigerators and freezers, as well as mechanical ice makers, began eliminating the need for shipped and stored ice.
By the mid-1940s, ice harvesting was as much as finished in Palmer Lake.
Many locals still remember their parents and grandparents working in the industry, said Davis.
He credits ice harvesting with strengthening and maintaining small towns like Palmer Lake and the multigenerational families that continue to live in the area.
“Ice harvesting played a vital role in the history of the town of Palmer Lake,” said Davis.
“So we try to keep that history alive. It should be more than a memory.”
To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.