The First Ice Factory Comes to Seattle
As Seattle prepared for a hot summer in 1882, the city broke ground on its first industrial ice plant to keep the town cool.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Some time since we published the fact that during the coming season an ice manufactory would be established in Seattle for the purpose of supplying the people of Puget Sound with a good quality of ice at reasonable rates during the hot weather. A location for the factory has been selected at the foot of Marion street, and the piling for the foundation of the building has already been driven. The machinery was shipped from New York City on the 20th of April by rail, and a portion of it has already arrived in San Francisco. The factory will be but a short distance from the Seattle Lumber and Commercial Company's sawmill and the power to drive the ice-making machine will be supplied from that mill. The building will be erected in time to receive the machinery, and the projectors of the enterprise expect to be turning out ice by the ton early in June. It is needless to say, however, that unless we have a change of weather from that prevailing during the past few days an ice factory will receive a cold reception by our people. But the chances are that we will have several months of hot weather, and that the prices will be so moderate that ice will become a common article for household purposes, and fill a want long felt by our people.
“The chances are that we will have several months of hot weather, and that the prices will be so moderate that ice will become a common article for household purposes, and fill a want long felt by our people.”
Today, Seattle's relationship with temperature is inverted; we worry about the lack of air conditioning as summers grow hotter. In 1882, the novelty of man-made ice was an industrial miracle meant to replace the scarcity of natural ice, marking the transition of Seattle from a frontier town to a modern city.
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