Why do many oil companies also sell Ice?

ken D

Why do many oil companies also sell Ice?
Is the ice a bi-product of some process of theirs?

Mark Hunt

If I had to guess


I would say it goes back to the days of coal. Companies delivered coal and ice to their customers. This was before refrigerators and freezers.

Some coal companies took on oil and eventually dropped the coal but kept the ice.

I know of a company in Albany, NY that still sells coal and ice.



Mark H

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John@Reliable_9

ditto

John Felciano

Hmmm

I always thought it was so they had something to do during the warm summer months way back in the old days.Coal in the winter and ice in the summer.

Don Walsh

Ice

Seems they have little to do in the off season but "Sit on their Ice"............OOOh, I know it was lame.


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Ranger

Leon Hess

I believe Leon Hess started out in the 1920's delivering ice and fuel oil out of Asbury Park,New Jersey.

Caselli

Who ?

Maybe Leon Hess is a big name in the NE, but I say, Who ?

Robert O'Connor_7

ken??

Your not Ken, are you??..Robert O'Connor/NJ

BillW@honeywell

Once upon a time...

in the Adirondacks, ice cutting was a big business. Ice for the cities' iceboxes came from two sources, big, ammonia-cooled commercial icemakers and cut ice from cold country lakes. Hand saws and powered ice saws were used to cut long strips from the 2-3 foot thick ice sheet on a lake, then the strips were cut into blocks of a standard size, which were then fished out and stacked with straw between the layers on a horse drawn sled. They either were loaded into an insulated railroad car and shipped south, or went into the icehouses that were a feature of any Adirondack great camp, farm, resort or coal/oil dealer. Shell fueloil, Blue Anthracite coal, clean ice! Remember the ads? These buildings were marvels of insulation, and would keep ice all summer. The cakes were pulled out as needed and placed in the ice chamber of the old iceboxes, which were used right up until the mid 1950's, since many of the remote areas in the 'Dacks didn't get electricity until then. My Dad and my Uncles all worked on this winter job!

Unknown

Ice harvesting

It's still done near my house in NH each year, for a farm museum.

Noel

BillW@honeywell

That was...

one backbreaking, wet, soul-freezingly cold job. The wind chill on those lakes is brutal, plus there is no way to stay dry. But up there, a job was a job! Woolrich Malone Green pants, black & red checkerboard shirt & jacket, knee-high green rubber boots with 2 pairs of grey wool socks, a wool ear-flap hat, or a fur "Trooper" style hat (if you were rich) were the order of the day! Carharts weren't invented yet.

DaveC

Cool pics, Noel!

The buzz-saw scares me, though - looks like it could take off on you, if you weren't real careful...

Unknown

The original snowmobile

beware of tailgaters....

R. Kalia

ice exports

For some time in the 1840's, New England ice was exported to the other side of the world. I grew up in Calcutta, and old maps of the downtown area show the location of the American ice house, stocked by ship from Salem and other east coast ports.

Why ice from so far away? because the Europeans were all fighting each other, but US ships were free to move about on the high seas. And in those pre-industrial days there was very little that the US had that they could sell in India, while there were a lot of things they wanted to buy from India (spices, china, fabrics...) So the ice was ballast for the trip out and worth something too. They also carried gold bullion---then, as now, the balance of trade was not in the US's favor.

The ice trade ended after a few years because local businessmen figured out how to grow and harvest ice in the Himalayas. But at the Peabody Museum in Salem, you can see some of the things the ships brought back in those days, including full-size clay models of Bengali businessmen to show people back home what they looked like. (Apparently, even though 1840's USA was hardly a colorblind country, the Americans were comfortable dealing with Indians---they didn't ask the British "agency houses" to handle the trade for them. One Salem trader even took his wife and kids for a several-month stay in a Calcutta trader's home.)

BillW@honeywell

This place is full of historians...

If you want to find out something, visit the Wall! Lots of the ice harvested in cold country lakes wound up in the ice bunkers of railroad refrigerator cars and in the A/C ice bunkers of Pullman sleepers and other first class cars. It was common for railroads to run solid trains of dressed meat, veggies, fruits and other perishables, and the cars needed to be iced before and sometimes during the trip. The ice was crushed into coarse chunks and dumped into the roof hatches of the cars, and salt was added. The cars were wooden with zinc-lined ice bunkers, and walls about 6 inches thick, insulated with rubberized horse hair. As the ice melted, it drained onto the track, which did wonders for steel bridges along the way!

Passenger cars were also cooled with ice, which was loaded in cakes into an ice bunker. A mechanical pump pumped the meltwater thru coils in the clerestory roof, and the motion of the train provided the air circulation. Once electric power was introduced, the pumps became electric & fans circulated the air. Ice A/C was used until the end of WW2, so were ice refrigerator cars. Today, Diesel powered refrigeration units cool the produce & meats, and regular vapor/compression A/C powered by electricity from the locomotive cool the passengers.

lchmb

where in New Hampshire?

Look's familiar but can't place it??

Unknown

North Sutton.

> Look's familiar but can't place it??

Unknown

North Sutton.

> Look's familiar but can't place it??

Unknown

North Sutton.

Musterfield Farm Museum, and Keyser Lake, on Rt 114

No traffic light there, either.

Long Island is a little different, I'll be back home after I retire (in over 20 years....)

Noel

[Deleted User]

Oil & Ice

Excellent question! It was so that they could work all year round. Since the ice typically was a lower profit margin item, they were glad the season was short. This helped them get through the year. It also gave them a way to hide a little cash. I had the good fortune of growing up in just such a business and that is how I ended up working in the heating business. I bagged and delivered ice cubes and hauled blocks of ice all summer and performed service calls and cleanings in the fall and winter. Just to throw in an interesting story...my bosses father (the founder of the business) was approached in the late 40's or very early 50's by a representative of The Frigidaire Corp. and was asked if he would like to become one of the first dealers in the state of Rhode Island. The Frigidaire rep was told by my bosses father that "he was nuts. No one would ever buy such an expensive machine and ice was here to stay."

I really enjoyed those days.

Take care

Vernon P. James

Where in Adks.???

I am in Saranac Lake. You know the cure cottage spot and usually the cold spot in the nation half the time during the winter months of Oct - May. 28 degrees here this am.

Dave Palmer_3

my

granpa sold ice in summer & kero for kitchen stoves and in winter sold firewood then into oil business

BillW@honeywell

Hi, Vern!

I'm talking about Loon Lake, The Saranacs, Lake Clear...all were used for ice harvesting when I was a kid. I was born in the Town of Saranac Lake. If you remember, we met once. Your truck was parked across from the Post Office, and my wife & I said hello to you, and I mentioned "The Wall". We visit occasionally, my relatives are all "on the other side of the lawn" now, but my brother has moved back to Bloomingdale from Florida. If he needs any plumbing work, I'll have him call you. Take care!

Joannie

Hey, Noel....

How's it going? Where is that farm museum? What lake? I wanna go.

Joannie

Whoops....

Should have kept reading. You answered that already.