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| Antique Ice Tongs |
From the journals:
“How many refrigerators do you suppose there were in Bath County in 1920? 1930? 1940? If there were so few, then what did folks do without refrigeration for preserving food and cooling drinks?
At regular times every day during the warmer months, the local ice man or men made their rounds. Mr. John Coyle and Mr. Francis Hunt (of Mt. Sterling) were two men who delivered ice.
Ice that was sold in Bath County prior to the coming of refrigeration came from a plant in Mt. Sterling. The ice was frozen in three hundred pound cakes. The ice was readily cut by chipping with an ice pick. Usually the chunks were cut in to three one-hundred pound cakes. Most patrons did not buy ice by the hundred pounds, so the hundred pound cakes were cut to fifty pounds and even as small as ten pounds for some customers.
Every ice man had at least two pair of hook type carriers for lifting and carrying ice. Their trucks were what in those days were referred to as one and a one-half ton vehicles.
The ice man usually supplied his regular patrons with a card which was about one foot square. This card would have four different numbers that indicated pounds. The pounds listed were 100, 50, 25, and 10. The patron would place his card on a nail on his front porch with the side of the card up indicating the number of pounds he desired that day.”