Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1897-11-18
Sight

dergarten this afternoon. and after tn
school is closed, Ida will take you tt
see one of the largest fish establish
ments in the United States" So a
/ two o'clock Sarah and took the elec
/ trio car and soon were at the kinder
garten, where Sarah left me in tht
care of all of those lady teachers unit
| school was dismissed. Then Ida, &C
companied by Miss Dale, another lady
! teacher, took me to the largest fish es
tablishment in the West.
When we reached the place Ida ask
ed for Mr.. Peters, the owner of the es
tablishment. As he was out and he i:
one of Ida's best friends, clerk seated
US and went to find him. 10 few
minutes a nice-looking man came, and
as | was introduced te-him | felt as
though | had known that man all ot
my life. AS he grasped my hand a
kind of magnetic influence passed all
over and all through me l felt a kind
of drawing towards him. It's singu-
lar how our first impressions govern
US. l have always read man or
woman at first sight. When l meet a
lady for the first time l look at her
eyes and face; then at her feet. II
they are all right 1 read her whole
character.
As soon as we had been introduced.
Mr.. P. said, follow me-" First he
took US down pair of stairs when we
stopped to take a general view ot our
surroundings. just over to our right
we saw great pump pumping water
from an artesian well which was two
hundred and fifty feet deep; further
down on that side were the boilers and
engine that run all of the works. On
the opposite side was the dynamo to
furnish light for all the lower works.
On our left Mr.. Peters took us past
big tubs of fresh oysters that had just
been taken from the shell, and being
ready for canning and putting in pals.
Further on were barrels and barrels of
oysters and CLANS and shrimps in the
shell, right fresh from the ocean. Just
around behind the stairs we had come
down was great tank partly full of
water and so full of turtles, diamond
back terrapins and fresh water turtles,
so thick you could hardly see the wa
ter. As he stood he reached over and
caught one of the turtles and showed
it to US. | asked him. 'where do you
get all of these turtles?" He said, ''ev-
erywhere a turtle lives;' he said,
there are $40 turtles in this tank and
are worth 50 per dozen. Most all of
this kind are used at restaurants and
eating houses" As l looked at these
turtles l said to myself "if l had all
the money that all the turtles l have
shot in my fish pond and in the creeks,
because we thought they were no
good, could have pretty good pile
of money"
When he took us across to the cold
storage rooms. we saw all one side of
this great room great doors let deep
in a thick wall. | should think the
wall was two feet thick. All along
the side of the walls of this room, over
the doors, were great pipes with which
blasts of air were forced through the
room. These large pipes run along
the walls and overhead on the inside.
One of those great doors was opened
and an electric light flashed up and we
were taken inside and such a sight |
never saw. All of the walls and all
overhead was solidly covered with ice
and a coating of ice. 1t was so thick
you could scrape the frost off in great
haudfuls. AS it was so hot outside
and we had been mopping our faces
all day long to mop the sweat off, for
a few minutes the change was real re-
freshing. But such a sight as l saw:
cords and cords of fish piled up in
walls as high man could reach, all
frozen in blocks. As l looked l saw
bass of all the known varieties. Blue
fish out of the Atlantic ocean and every
kind of fish that is fit for food for men
out of the lakes aud out of almost ev-
cry river and stream in the world
These fish are what are left after the
days orders are filed. Those left
over are put in the cold storage for fu-
ture use. / asked him. .swhere do
you send your fsh?n He said, sew
erywhere fish is eaten" He said,
s'you see all those empty barrels?''
We looked and saw about twenty-five
or thirty barrels. He said, 'those
barrels were all full of fish this morn
ing and all have gone to fill orders,
except what you see on the table over
there" where a row of men were
stringing and dressing them. There
were abou. two or three bushels on
the table; these will go into the stor-
age. We saw men weighing fish aud
packing in boxes for shipment When
the fish are in the box it is filled with
powdarad ice tbap closad IN ,r;sb N