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ST. CLAIR SHORES — Before the days of home refrigerators, Americans placed ice in ice boxes to help preserve their food. Lake St. Clair supplied the ice for most local residents.
Here an ice cutting crew from about 1912 slides blocks of ice from the lake onto a sled which would then have been hauled ashore. The ice would have been stored in local icehouses. One such icehouse was on Jefferson Avenue, near what is today Blossom Heath Park.
The stored ice was prevented from melting by being insulated by straw or sawdust. Eventually, ice was produced commercially, and ice cutting on the lakes ended.
While mass production of refrigerators began in the U.S. about 1918, their use did not become widespread until the 1940s.
To view other historic photographs, visit: https://sbrb-montage.auto-graphics.com.
— Submitted by Heidi Christein, archivist, St. Clair Shores Public Library
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