Chances are you can walk into your kitchen and quickly fill a glass with ice from the ice maker built into your refrigerator. Your ancestors living in early Bryan County would be amazed by such a luxury. Many of them depended on an ice company to deliver ice to their homes in town. Those in the rural areas harvested or produced their own ice in bulk and stored it in well-constructed ice houses.
O. G. & E. assured customers in 1927 that ice would “save food, protect health, and add to comfort during the hot summer months”. They operated ice plants in ten communities in southern Oklahoma and specifically trained their employees in “refrigeration services.” Drivers demonstrated the best place in the refrigerator to store certain foods and checked the unit for needed repairs. Those “ice boxes” seem primitive by our standards, but they did indeed save food and protect health.
Newspaper articles and ads show that even the smallest towns in the county had ice houses in the early 1900s. In 1906 Byron Bouchared sold his ice house on Main Street in Sterrett to “Wells & King” and he moved to Bennington where he operated their ice house.
In 1911 M. F. Haralson completed a new ice house on the Katy right-of-way in Caddo. It was “larger and better than theoldone”andhealsobought a new ice wagon. Durant Ice & Light Co. made deliveries in Durant and reminded customers: “If you are not getting ice, phone us and we will have our wagon call every day.”
J. W. Ridgell announced in 1914 that because of the rapid growth of Bennington he would be running two ice wagons in the new season. The wagons would begin at 6:30 and every house would receive ice before 10 o’clock. Charlie McDonald assisted. “We will get a car of ice as soon as the weather warms up enough to use it.”
Unfortunately, farm families didn’t have the luxury of having ice delivered. Any ice found in their glass was typically produced or harvested and stored on their own property. The newspapers of 1914 published detailed instructions in how to freeze ice blocks using specially designed cans made of “heavy galvanized iron.” These could be obtained from the local tinsmith. The U. S. Department of Agriculture also produced a farmers’ bulletin (475) on “Ice Houses.” Drawings and diagrams were printed in the paper. Ice could be harvested from rivers and ponds during the winter and there were ice plows and other equipment for this purpose. However, ice produced in cans was said to be “pure, free from vegetable growth, which sometime damages pond and river ice”.
Payment for ice was usually in cash or coupons or tickets. A 1917 ad for Consumer’s Light & Power urged customers to have “Ice Book handy or right change ready” for the wagon driver. The next year they produced a large ad to “explain why it was necessary to increase the price of ice.” They cited increases in fuel costs, labor, delivery, and “other items of expense” as the basis for charging more. The price for a book of twenty-two 5-cent coupons rose from $1 to $1.10. The company stated that the rates were temporary and they would “gladly reduce them as soon as conditions will permit.”
The summer of 1918 was so hot and dry that it created an ice shortage in Caddo. More and more people bought ice and Mr. Haralson struggled to obtain 1,500 pounds a day. McGraw and Smith brought truckloads from Denison. Other shipments came in from McAlester. “Water being scarce, we have had to depend upon Blue River water from the waterworks and this was so warm that ice was required to make it drinkable.”
Wagon teamsters went on strike in 1920 and the New State Ice Company (OKC) asked for police protection. Ice delivery was hampered for a time and some customers went directly to ice houses to get their ice.
Ice delivery wasn’t easy and an accident in Durant in 1920 proved that it was also risky. Driver Riley James narrowly escaped death when his partially filled ice wagon overturned, pinning him underneath it. He was going around the corner of Locust Street and cut it too close, causing the wagon to tip over. The wagon was lifted off of him and he survived.
In November of 1926 O. G. & E. promoted year-round refrigeration and ice delivery. “No household is truly modern that does not take ice in all weathers.” They promised that “pure distilled water ice” would be delivered and food would be protected from “dust, dirt, and germs” if kept in the refrigerator. The ice business of O.G. & E. was acquired by Western Ice Co. in 1929. E. B. Hart, manager, stayed with the new company as local manager; W. P. Hill stayed as district manager.
In 1929 all of Durant’s ice companies agreed to drive through alleys in town and make “back door deliveries” in order to reduce downtown traffic.
Ice houses continued to serve the public through the thirties. Even after a fire destroyed Mr. Couch’s ice house in Kenefick, he continued in business by moving to the old bank building. A new ice house was built on Fourth Ave. in Durant.
During the summer of 1941 some of the members of the Durant football team toned their muscles by “slinging hundred-pound blocks of ice to and fro”. In 1942 Ice Service Co. managed by Ed Hart, and Independent Ice Co., managed by Halsell Hudspeth, agreed on a daily schedule that conserved resources for “national defense.”
As modern refrigerators became more efficient and more popular, ice houses began to disappear and ice delivery was replaced by “self-serve” machines. In 1957 Green Spray grocery in Durant advertised “24-hour crushed ice service at our ice house on the north side of the parking lot.” People still love crushed ice and can purchase it at a variety of locations in the county.