Ice House Museum
How did people keep food cold before refrigerators were used?
The Ice House Museum teaches us about how people preserved their food before refrigerators and freezers were used.
Transcript
[Abby Brown] You know that refrigerator where you just grabbed a snack? Well, that my friends, was not always part of our kitchens.
(Map marking Black Hawk County in the northeastern part of the state.)
Here in Black Hawk County we get a close-up look at how people kept their food cool before refrigerators were common; which was in the 1930s.
(A black and white film of men sawing through clear blocks on a conveyor belt.)
(A man walking along a shore guiding clear blocks.)
This is an ice house!
(A circular shaped brick building with brown metal doors. A mural on the side of the building reads, “Welcome Cedar Falls Ice House Museum.”)
It was built in 1921. It's right by the Cedar River, which makes a lot of sense because that river, a long time ago, provided ice. Ice that was harvested, or taken out of the river, and put into this ice house. It could be sent all over the country to help people keep things, like food, cold. Can you imagine how back-breaking that work would have been? Those huge ice chunks are heavy.
(Red metal tongs remove a rectangular chunk of ice from greenish-gray water.)
It's not an ice house anymore, it's an Ice House Museum and these days that's pretty rare. So how do you think ice like that was transported in the 1920s and 1930s?
Every county in Iowa has a cool story to tell! Thanks for visiting Black Hawk County with me.
Funding for FIND Iowa has been provided by The Coons Foundation, Pella and the Gilchrist Foundation.
