On US 441 on the north side of the town of McIntosh, Florida, at the top of the hill going out
of town, sits a building, that, in it's day was "The McIntosh Ice House". (Today it's
an antique emporium...the building still stands and the doors and walls are the same
thick insulated ones that made up the ice house.)

"Back in the day" when brother Wayne and I were growing up, we had ice deliveries
from the ice house. "The Ice Man Cometh" was a weekly event for us. We had no electric
power until, I think, the early 50's, so no refrigeration. The ice man would bring in
a big block of ice (100#, I think) and place in in our "ice box". That had to last us
until the next delivery. I still have one of those "ice boxes"; it's crated and sitting
in the basement having followed me around for 50 years or so.

While grinding pork sausage this morning, I got to thinking about those "good old days".
Early on when we butchered hogs (when the weather began to cool in the fall) the meat
would be preserved by smoking. Most houses, as did ours, had a smoke house out back.
I'm reminded of grinding sausage in those times. Grandma and mama would season the first
grinds to taste and then fry a few samples. Man oh man was that good stuff. Wayne and
I both remember looking forward to trying those samples.
Early on, that ground sausage was then stuffing into casings (AKA, pig's gut) and hung
in the smoke house to cure.
As the smoke house usage disappeared over the years, our fresh meats were taken to and
stored at the McIntosh Ice House for preservation.

Cousin Morris remembers:
"You could even buy a 25 lb block, there was a mark put on it so you took ice pick to 
cut it with also don't forget the big ice tongs for handling the big blocks. When it 
left the ice plant it was 300 lb blocks. They also iced the railroad cars too. When that 
plant closed we had to go to Williston."
Somewhere I've got a set of those old ice tongs. Probably packed away in the basement
too!

Eventually we, as did others, got electric power, refrigerators and freezers and the
old McIntosh Ice House passed into oblivion.