I’ve heard from a few people that it is a nice warm day in Maple Hill, with temperatures in the 60s, so perhaps I won’t be criticized so much if I talk about cutting ice from ponds, creeks and rivers.

There’s a collection of old Fauerbach Family photographs in the Kansas State Historical Society’s archives. You can find them at www.kansasmemory.org

Two of them show members of the Fauerbach Family cutting ice on their ponds on the Fauerbach farm. They are so interesting. I estimate these photos were taken between 1900 and 1910.

Cutting ice for storage and summer use was hard, hard, hard work as these photos show. The ice had to be marked off with some kind of sharp tool that scored it in rows. Then you had to take a one-handled saw and actually saw through 8″ or 10″ or more of ice. Someone had to then take ice tongs and pull the big blocks of ice out of the water and over to the bank where they were loaded onto big sleds or sledges and hauled to the ice house.

I have many references to ice houses in the Maple Hill community. Most are from the Maple Hill News Items in Wabaunsee County papers. Most of the grocery stores had ice houses, as did the Windler Hotel. Many individuals also had ice houses at their homes and farms. The ice was harvested this time of year and was used over the spring and summer. Most of the ice houses were in businesses, town homes and farms They were usually frame and would have thick walls that were filled with sawdust as insulation. They held the ice pretty well but it was usually gone during the “dog days” of August and until the winter.

I also threw in this photograph of Warner Adams cutting ice on the Adams Pasture Pond, so that cattle could drink. From the looks of the line of cattle coming to drink, Warner opened up the pond just in time. You can see the large, stone house built in the late 1870s by the Woodford Family in the background, so I would say this is the pond between the Maple Hill Cemetery and the Woodford House. Some folks used to know it as the Gooden Farm and Pond.

I’m sure some of the businesses must have sold ice to town customers in Maple Hill, but strangely I have not been able to find any reference to ice being sold and delivered. Do any of our readers remember ice being delivered in Maple Hill?

Its a part of our past I’m sure we’re glad has disappeared. Have a great day!!