Ice Cutting on Quincy Bay

 The harvest scene at the bay was a lively one, for there were many companies, each working a group of men and horses in its own section of the bay at the same time. 

 The larger wholesale companies filled their icehouses and loaded barges to ship down the river as soon as the beginning of spring would permit. Heavy draft horses pulling ice wagons from door to door became a familiar sight. Icemen delivered block ice, placed in iceboxes which were insulated wooden chests to store food items. Neighborhood children looked forward to the coming of the iceman, who would chip off pieces of ice as a treat for them during the summer.  

 A number of companies and individuals were engaged in the ice-cutting business, among them James Jarrett, J. A. McDade Co., Hutmacher and Kreitz, Liebig & Son, and the Pure Ice Company. With so many companies on the bay, there were some conflicts. In February 1901, the Pure Ice Company filed a complaint for injunction against the Hutmacher Ice Company. An agreement was reached, however, allowing Hutmacher a channel along the sandbar for its field and the Pure Ice Company a channel in the field of the Hutmacher Company.   

 According to the May 23, 1942, Quincy Herald Whig, Rudolph Hutmacher, born in 1836 in Germany, was the first man in this region to cut ice from the bay and store it in icehouses to be sold during the summer months. He entered the ice business in 1854, with a partner John Matthew Kreitz, who also came to Quincy from Germany. Rudolph Hutmacher was the first harvester of ice to ship on barges to the south. In 1878, he received great acclaim for sending barge loads of ice to New Orleans, ice that was greatly needed because of the yellow fever epidemic there. In 1904, the Hutmacher company secured a contract with the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy railroad company to supply that line and several other railroads with natural ice for shipment and for use in refrigerator cars.  

Around the turn of the twentieth century there were seventeen icehouses along the front of the bay. Built largely of stone, because of its insulating properties, they kept large stocks of ice with surprisingly little melting through the summer months. If the river flooded in the spring, some houses would be inundated with water and the ice would float. Dick Brothers Brewery had an icehouse on the bay, plus four icehouses on Spring Street as well as those at the brewery. Ruff Brothers Brewery also put up a new icehouse near their brewery on South Twelfth Street.  

The stone icehouses on the bay were demolished in 1930. The stone was hauled to the west approach of the Quincy Memorial Bridge, which opened June 30, 1930, to be used as rip rap to protect the shoreline. 

 To harvest the ice, first a sharp-pointed plow, drawn by heavy draft horses, marked off long lines about two feet apart. Then cross sections were drawn. After this scoring was done, men inserted long, piked poles along the lines, and with a sharp push, caused the ice to clear into straight-sided blocks. When this failed, saws made the final cuts. Workers then pushed the blocks through channels opened to the shore and barges. Ice ranging in thickness from 10 inches to a foot was considered ideal because it could be easily grabbed by tongs.  

In the early days, men with ice tongs heaved the 200-pound blocks into their storage places. Later, horses were employed to operate racks moving the ice. Eventually, chain conveyors carried the frozen chunks into the icehouses or barges. The big blocks were packed in straw, granulated cork, and sawdust to prevent melting.

 Ice-cutting was dangerous work. The January 26, 1901, Herald-Whig article reported that four men fell through the ice on the bay. Then in February, a Hutmacher team of horses fell through the ice and was rescued only with difficulty. A few weeks later a large field of ice suddenly became detached from the shore and floated off. Harvesters left their horse and tools on the ice, making a run to the shore to save their lives. One man, Enos Reiney, ran back onto the ice field to save the horse and tools. 

 In peak years 200,000 tons of ice were taken from the bay, which yielded the best ice. Fed by springs and creeks flowing through limestone cliffs, the water was clean; and it made crystal clear ice, reputedly the best in the Mississippi Valley. Ice was also harvested further up the river, at Keokuk and Burlington, which generally had the advantage of colder weather. Sometimes ice fields would be plowed at night to allow the cold to get below the ice and freeze it to thicker depth.  

With metropolitan growth, many sources of natural ice became contaminated from industrial pollution or sewer runoff. In 1921, when winter weather became fickle, Hutmacher and Kreitz established an “artificial ice” plant, a plant which manufactured ice, to carry out their contracts. Even after their artificial ice plant, the Hutmachers still used an icehouse, which was necessary to furnish ice in excess of what the machinery was able to turn out during the peak season.  

 A high river stage spoiled the ice harvest in 1928 and the winters from 1929 to 1932 were too warm. From that time on no ice was cut on the bay.  

Manufactured ice and electric refrigeration eventually ended the ice harvest. As electric and gas refrigeration progressed, the demand for artificial manufactured ice also declined rapidly. However, iceboxes, using artificial ice, lingered in use until the late 1940s.  

Sources

“Al Hutmacher Dies In Hospital At The Age Of 68.” Quincy Herald Whig, May 23, 

1942, 8.

“Cold Recalls Ice-Cutting Days.” Quincy Herald Whig, January 29, 1963, 14.

“Flames Complete Work of Wrecking Ice House On Bay; Razed Hutmacher Storage 

Place Burns Sunday Afternoon And Night.” Quincy Herald Whig, January 6, 1930. 

“Hutmacher Ice Company, Old Business Of Quincy, Sold To Galesburg Firm.” Quincy 

Herald Whig, July 7, 1928.

“Ice Cutting Is Now Lost Art In Quincy Ares.” Quincy Herald Whig, December 31, 

1944, 3.

“Ice Men.” Quincy Herald Whig, January 26, 1901, 7.

Landrum, Carl. “Cutting Ice Was Early Industry.” Quincy Herald Whig, February 27, 

1966.

“Pack Ice.” Quincy Daily Journal, February 8, 1901, 7.

“Pure Ice Company Observes Fiftieth Year In Business; Company Founded By Jesse 

E. Weems Has Had Steady Growth.” Quincy Herald Whig, September 15, 1946.

Wilcox, David F. “Quincy and Adams County, History and Representative Men,” vol. 

1, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co., 1919.