Horse Drawn Ice Cutting Plow - Belle Fourche, SD
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 44° 40.437 W 103° 51.168
13T E 590928 N 4947371
Ice was a crop before refrigeration...you had to know how to harvest it.
Waymark Code: WM100RT
Location: South Dakota, United States
Date Posted: 02/04/2019
Views: 2
County of display: Butte County
Location of display: 415 5th Ave, Tri-State Museum, Belle Fourche
In the days before mechanical refrigeration, the ice on rivers and ponds was a crop. When January rolled around and the ice was ripe, it was time to harvest. Ice harvested from Midwestern rivers, lakes and ponds served many purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The growing meat packing and brewing industries needed it. People needed ice at home, too. Iceboxes - large wooden coolers using blocks of ice - were common well into the 1930s and 40s.
"The next job was to mark the ice field. To create a base line men drove two stakes into auger holed about 200 feet apart at the edge of the field to be cut. They placed a long plank fitted with sights in line with the stakes and ran a hand plow close to its edge, cutting a groove one-half inch deep. When this line was completed, they scribed the first cross line in the same manner. These first grooves at right angles to each other served as guides for the ice marker, which had a row of teeth and a swing guide. The teeth were placed in the previously scribed groove and pulled along its entire length, deepening the groove to two inches. The swing guide was then placed in the groove, thus gauging the distance for the next groove, and the process was repeated until the entire field was marked out like a checkerboard.
"Once the field was marked, it had to be plowed (or grooved) and this job was done by a horse-drawn ice plow. Each tooth of the plow was set to cut one-quarter inch deeper than the one in front of it; consequently, one trip with an eight-tooth plow would deepen a groove by two inches. Multiple trips by two plows could deepen the grooves to seven inches, sufficiently deep for l2-inch ice (the most common cut for retail trade). The cakes could then be split off with a breaking bar and, if done correctly, would break evenly, leaving no lips on the cakes." ~ Historic Sodus Point