Before the advent of electricity, people stored food in root cellars, basements and ice boxes. Ice boxes were cabinets lined with tin and grates. A large block of ice was placed in the top to keep the food cool. All year long, the ice man would drive his wagon full of ice blocks through the streets and alleys carefully looking at each house. In the window was a cardboard sign with numbers used to indicate how much ice the home would need.
Getting ice in the middle of summer was no easy task. In the bitterly cold months of January and February ice would be harvested from local ponds and the river. The large blocks were then stored in double-walled and insulated barns called ice houses. Ice houses were located along the DuPage River at the foot of Rotary Hill and near Hillside.
Local businesses like Stenger Brewery and the Naperville Creamery built large ice houses for their products and for ice sales in the community. The Stenger ice house was 100 feet long, 30 feet wide and fifteen feet high. Now that is a lot of ice!
In the Archives at Naper Settlement there is a real photo postcard of a frozen river scene which could be the only image of Thomas Finley’s ice house on the right (or south) bank and Naper’s Mill on the left (or north bank) of the DuPage River. But it wasn’t all hard work on the frozen DuPage River in January. Wide flat areas on the river provided the perfect spot for ice skating.
Ice was used to make tasty treats, too! In another picture from the Archives boys are sitting with buckets of ice in the basement of Heim’s Confectionary. Julian Heim used local milk and cream to make ice cream which is a cool way to celebrate on a hot summer day!
