an original building

Before the electric refrigerator, farm families had icehouses. The iceman did not peddle the country roads. If you made butter, as many did in the summer, you needed ice or very cold water to work the butter. The Realys joined with the Barbers across the road and their Archenbronn relatives to cut ice on Merkle Lake. It was sawn and brought by teams and sleighs and packed away in sawdust.

On the door, the Realy Brothers kept a penciled record of ice cut from Merkle Lake or the Waterloo Mill Pond. They recorded the dates, the size and number of cakes per year, the number of loads, and the number of cakes per load. One line shows, "We didn't get any ice in 1921".

Originally, a dirt floor absorbed any water that resulted from slowly melting ice. The walls are double, insulated with sawdust. Cakes of ice were tightly packed with sawdust. Thus reducing the amount of oxygen in the building, the ice lasted much longer. Ice needs oxygen to melt, just as fire needs oxygen to burn. The last ice to be packed would be at the top, using the door under the eave and this, too, would be the first ice out.

The Historical Society added windows and a poured concrete floor because our museum staff used this building for admissions and gift shop the first twenty-five years.