The Ice Man delivering a 25 lb block of ice in Houston, Texas, 1928.

The Ice Man delivering a 25 lb block of ice in Houston, Texas, 1928. The ice trade was a lucrative business during the 19th and early 20th century. Ice was harvested from ponds and streams and then shipped off either by railroad or ship all across the globe.


A network of ice wagons would distribute the ice to its final destination. In 1806, Frederic Tudor (aka Ice King) began the ice trade in New England by shipping it to his wealthy clients in the Caribbean. His business began to grow over the years as he expanded to Cuba and the southern part of the United States.

Soon he was shipping ice all over the world to places like India, Australia, China and South America. At the peak of the ice trade, the industry in the U.S. employed 90,000 people and 25,000 horses. The demand for ice surged during World War 1, however, once the war ended, the ice trade collapsed due to the emergence of refrigeration cooling systems.

By the 1930s, modern refrigerators became more common in homes and by the 1950s, they were nearly ubiquitous in both the U.S. and Europe.

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