HAMMOND MEATS | STOCKYARD LOCATION | ICE HARVESTING |
|
I. Cutting the Ice
“These are the ice-cutters. No
pleasure-seekers these, no makers of festivals, no chevaliers of the
ladies but journeymen of nature, laborers who win bread from the
fiercest moods of winter, who brave death itself to wrest from the
gnomes of the frost the refreshment of thousands while the dog-star
rages and the great cities faint under the merciless noon.”
|
||
|
||
Freezing winter temperatures meant one
thing to the people of Hammond in 1894: jobs! Hundreds of men and
younger boys who were willing to face the winter conditions, were
employed to cut, move and store large chunks of ice taken from Wolf Lake
in Hammond. The work was
not only difficult, it was also dangerous. Slipping, falling, freezing,
the manual labor was required to get the job done. Hundreds of part time
workers contributed to the success of Hammond meat packing business and
the ice box rail cars needed to ship meat hundreds of miles from the
Hammond site.
"They waited until the ice was at least a solid eight or nine inches thick, preferably more, so it would be sturdy enough to support dozens of men and their workhorses. The ice men prayed for the weather to be cold and clear—any snowfall insulated the ice like a soft blanket, slowing down the freezing process and reducing the quality of the ice. It was often late January before the ice was ready for harvest. The ice field was first cleared of any snow, and horses were hitched up to etch the ice into a grid pattern. Then, the cutting and sawing began. Ice blocks, or “cakes,” were cut in uniform sizes—often two to three feet long and a foot and a half wide, ranging in weight from 80 pounds up to 190 pounds each, depending on the block’s size and the composition of the ice. A channel was cut in the ice field, meandering from the ice house to the work space, and the cakes were floated—pushed by long poles—along the channel to the shore near the ice house..." "The Ice-Man Cutteth: Remembering Michigan's Winter Harvest", FOUND MICHIGAN |
||
Wolf Lake Ice Cutters 1924 |
Army of workers take to the ice at Wolf Lake. |
|||
Hammond innovation applied itself to the development of a motorized ice cutting machine. |
Men and horses work
together to harvest ice. |
|||
|
|
"It’s almost absurd
nowadays to think of ice as a crop, with its own short harvest season, like
asparagus or strawberries.
But at the turn of the 20th century, before refrigerators and ice-makers and
bagged ice at the liquor store, hand-harvested
ice from America’s northern lakes was a vital resource. For nearly a hundred
years, this so-called “natural ice”
was pretty much the only ice used anywhere — for shipping perishables, storing
meat and dairy, even making cocktails or ice cream..."
Source: Ibid.
II. Storing the Ice
|
||
Commercial businesses relating to the
cutting and storage of ice, thrived in Hammond, Indiana, and throughout
the developing cities of the northern USA in the early part of the 20th
century. Among the largest was Knickerbocker Ice that furnished the
large investment in building ice storage facilities. Hammond also had
investments from the Knickerbocker company. This etching is from one of
their New York facilities but designs were similar to the one used by
the G.H. Hammond Meat Packing business.
Using ice from Wolf Lake and the refrigerated rail ice cars from Pullman Standard, these two elements contributed to the success and profitability of Hammond meat packing industry. |
||
Workers cut ice on Wolf Lake for storage. |
Photo from the top of the ice ramp looking down at the workers at Wolf Lake. |
|
||
An illustrated view inside the ice house showing the labor intensive assignments for receiving and storing the ice. The supervisor stands at the left near the entry way as slabs of ice enter the building. They are sorted and stacked for storage, then retrieved when need by the rail cars shipping dressed meats from Hammond to the East Coast. Sometimes sawdust was used to keep the ice from melting and acted as insulation. Months later, ice would still be available long after the lake ice had disappeared under the rising temperatures. |
III Shipping the Ice
|
||||
Loading ice from the top of refrigerator cars at Wolf Lake. |
Loading ice box cars from the side. |
|||
|
||||
A new ice car rolls off the assembly line in Hammond, Indiana |
Delivery of ice to homes by the local ice company. |
HAMMOND MEATS | STOCKYARD LOCATION | ICE HARVESTING |