Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, Wakefield, Mass.

Title

Cutting Ice on Lake Quannapowitt, circa 1910

Description

"Taken on Cowdrey Hill on Prospect Street, this circa 1910 photo captures the ice cutting operations probably conducted by the Peoples Ice Company, which had six ice houses at Hall's Park at the upper left, opposite the WMGLD plant on North Avenue, and the Whipple & Morrill ice houses (later Porter-Milton) at the right in the photo, built on Hartshorne's Meadow. According to former historian Ruth Woodbury in a presentation to the Historical Society in the 1950s, more than $100,000 worth of ice was shipped out of town annually. Built in 1890 through a partnership between ice dealer John G. Morrill and Boston hotel owner J. Reed Whipple, the Whipple & Morrill ice-houses shipped much of its ice to Whipple's hotels: the Parker House, Young's and the Touraine. The photo also shows the WMGLD barn. In the foreground are houses along Prospect Street. Note the structures in the rear of the houses, which were probably outhouses."

Image from the Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department annual calendar, 2011

Photo courtesy of the Frederick D. Bodin, Bodin Historic Photo.

Contributor

Institution: Lucius Beebe Memorial Library

Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department (Wakefield, Mass.)

D'Onofrio, Jayne M.

Coverage

Massachusetts--Middlesex (county)--Wakefield

Quannapowitt, Lake (Mass.)

Date

ca. 1910

Format

image/jpeg

Publisher

Wakefield, Mass. : Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department

Subject

Ice industry

Type

still image

Photographs

Original Format

1 picture: b & w

Extent

19 x 33 cm.