Imagine a museum filled with the artifacts from one of the top 10 U.S. businesses in the early 20th century.
What businesses come to mind? Farming? Steel-making?
How about ice harvesting? It wasn’t the first business I imagined, until I learned about it at Knowlton’s Ice Museum in Port Huron, Michigan this weekend.
The only natural ice museum in North America, Knowlton’s is tucked away in downtown Port Huron, a block away from the public library.
Once inside, you’ll quickly discover Knowlton’s is not like many museums you visit.
Knowltons Ice Museum contains the personal collection of Micky Knowlton, a Port Huron businessman who owned his own artificial ice business for almost 40 years before selling it to Arctic Glacier Ice in 2004.
Knowlton and his wife traveled the country, collecting tools used in the natural ice harvesting business. The Knowlton family has continued to manage the collection and now run the 10,000 square foot museum with over 5,000 display items.
As I explored the museum, I learned about the fascinating history of ice harvesting and how Michigan farmers began harvesting ice from our local rivers and from the Great Lakes.
Initially, ice was cut by hand with saws. Over time, with the development of the ice plow, ice was scored, cut into 300-pound blocks, and transported by horse-drawn wagons to ice houses. Sawdust was used to insulate and separate the blocks of ice in the houses that could store thousands of pounds of ice.
Ice harvesting was cold and dangerous work. Men worked quickly to scrape snow from the top of the ice on the river or lake, score, slice, and move the ice. Blocks of ice stacked in ice houses could contain thousands of pounds of ice.
In the warm weather months, ice was transported by ship to areas as far away as India. Local ice businesses grew quickly to serve their communities. Horse-drawn wagons, and later, ice trucks, were seen on the streets of cities and towns, delivering ice directly to homes and businesses.
And when I say ice was delivered directly, the ice delivery man would walk into a business or home and place blocks of ice in the ice boxes in kitchens. Some kitchens were constructed to accommodate ice boxes with a rear door facing an exterior wall; the ice man could deliver ice without walking inside.
Once electricity became more common, home refrigerators and artificial ice manufacturing equipment led to the decline of the natural ice harvesting business. By 1950, 90 percent of the U.S. urban population and 80 percent of the rural population had refrigerators.
In the museum, you’ll find antique ice wagons and trucks, an array of ice harvesting equipment, including ice plows, ice shoes, and ice cutting equipment, ice boxes, early refrigerators, and wonderful descriptions of the artifacts and how they were used.
I had a great time exploring the museum; it brought back memories of my childhood when local Twin Pines truck would make deliveries of milk and other dairy items in our neighborhood.
If you visit, be sure to watch the 15-minute video with actual footage from ice harvesting operations.
