Residents of Jamestown were going to be using imported ice in 1933.

Imported all the way from Spiritwood Lake that is.

Ice had been harvested from the James River right in Jamestown for years. However, low water on the river was causing the ice to contain mud and algae. While the principle use of the ice was cooling the residential ice box back in the days before refrigerators the homeowner would occasionally chip off a piece for drinks.

This was just after prohibition ended so I’m sure some ice was finding its way into cocktails.

Refrigerators didn’t become common until after World War II. There were models available as early as the 1920s but they had some disadvantages. The chemicals used as coolant could cause blindness or even burst into flames if they leaked from the fridge.

And electrical service wasn’t as stable as it is now so your fridge probably would only work part of the time under the best of circumstances.

So in the 1930s most people in Jamestown still relied on an ice box to keep their food and drinks cool. And they relied on the Jamestown Ice Company for the ice to keep the ice box cool.

The company harvested 8 million pounds of ice from Spiritwood Lake during the winter of 1932 to 1933. The ice on the lake was said to be about 17 inches thick and a crew of eight men employed by the ice company cut the ice into blocks. Farmers with teams of horses were hired to pull the blocks out of the lake and to the shore.

The Jamestown Ice Company also hired about 50 other farmers with about 30 trucks to haul the ice from Spiritwood Lake to Jamestown. Those drivers had to be busy. If the trucks of the 1930s could haul 1,000 lbs. per trip they had to make 8,000 trips from Spiritwood to Jamestown.

Even if the trucks could haul a ton it would still take 4,000 trips to haul the ice to town.

But what I found interesting about this incident is the reason the ice company gave for using Spiritwood Lake ice rather than James River.

“It will cost several thousand more,” said E.S. Cronin, manager of Jamestown Ice. “But it will give Jamestown an unexcelled supply of ice and it will provide work for additional men.”

The depressed economy of the 1930s is legendary. I’m sure it was tempting for the Jamestown Ice Company to sacrifice quality and save costs. Instead they took pride in their product and in the fact they provided work for dozens of men in the area.

It is too bad modern refrigerators took over the food cooling industry in the decades that followed. We could use more companies like Jamestown Ice Company.

I have a snow shovel sitting on my deck. So far this
winter the only movement it has seen is when the dog knocks it over.

That is a good thing.

We’ve had a few winters recently with a lot of snow.
We’ve had to deal with deep drifts and the inconveniences they bring. But we
have modern equipment for moving snow.

In 1907 there was a lot of snow as well. Probably similar
to the last few years.

And they didn’t have the modern equipment we take for
granted today.

According to a January edition of the Jamestown Alert
there were 1,200 men hired by the railroad to shovel off the tracks between
Larimoure and Minot.

The railroad sent out special trains, including bunk and
cook cars, for the crews that would be shoveling the tracks clear. The trouble
was the wind was blowing in the snow as quickly as the track was shoveled. In
fact, visibility was so bad that a following freight train ran into a shoveling
crew killing two and injuring 7.

The Great Northern Railroad tried using a rotary plow on
another section of track in northern North Dakota. This was the equivalent of a
big snowblower mounted on a steam engine.

The rotary plow ran out of coal before it reached Minot.
Unfortunately, the tracks had blown in behind the train effectively leaving it
stranded in the middle of nowhere.

In a move that had to be embarrassing to the railroad
they had to contract with local farmers to use horse drawn sleds to haul coal
to the train.

In Jamestown things were getting desperate due to a lack
of coal. The railroad loaned the city power plant 10 tons to keep the power on
in Jamestown. The state hospital heating plant was also noted as running short
on coal because the trains weren’t getting through even on the mainline of the
Northern Pacific.

It would seem that watching for the railroad snow plows
and trains was a common pass time in any of the towns along the tracks,
including Jamestown.

Dr. J.J. Davy, a local physician in Jamestown, even
diagnosed a new ailment associated with the problem.

Davy said he had diagnosed many cases of
“rubberneckitis” in people who stood on the depot platform looking
down the track to see if the snow plow was coming.

Which is why the lack of snow is good for everyone’s
health this winter.

Gaining the right to vote for women was a long and slow
process. The earliest discussions started in colonial days when Abigail Adams
wrote her husband a letter reminding him to “Remember the ladies.”
Instead we end up with a Declaration of Independence that said “All men
are created equal.”

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton rallied for the
vote with the American Equal Rights Association. The group worked for the vote
for black men and women of all races. They only partially succeeded with the
vote for men of any race guaranteed by the 15th Amendment in 1870.

Also in the 1870s the women’s suffrage movement gained an
ally. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union
added its quest for national prohibition with the right to vote for the
ladies. I’m sure this group made a lot of friends among the male political
factions on both those topics.

Women won the right to vote in 1920. Since then they have
been as responsible as the male population for our political messes.

But it took years for the energy to build within the
movement. By 1915 the topic was hitting the front burner and was making news
even on the local level. The Jamestown Alert ran a number of brief articles
during January of that year.

First, they listed the minimum wage for women. These laws
varied from state to state but at least some listed the basic wage for women at
$8.35 per week.

Most people make at least that wage in an hour, not a
week, of labor. Even adjusted for inflation that is about $178 per week.

And the paper included some comments from the local
residents about the prospect of allowing women access to the ballot box.

The Wednesday Night Club, a gathering of local leaders
and business men, suggested that women be given what they want.

“If they want to bring in the wood and bring in the water,”
the article continued.

It would seem that women not only have won the right to
vote and better wages. They have also won the right to indoor plumbing and
central heat.

I guess that has to be called progress.