The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-06
THE ICE MEN ARE HAPPY
The Coal Dealers Are Also Reap
ing a Harvest.
ICE CROP IS A GOOD ONE
Methods Are Not So Elaborate as in the
East-Presence OF Alkali Cannot be
Distinguished-Ice is Eight
Inches Thick.

Great Falls, Jan. 5.-Whi1e nearly all
lines of business in this city are dull
and complain of a lack of anything to
do there are certain firms which are
cutting ice right along. These, of
course, are the icemen, although the
coal man is reaping a harvest at the
same time and will continue to do so as
long as the present cold snap endures.
Great Falls has quite crop of the
crystal commodity which breaks the
heart of the average householder when
the warm days of summer arrive, and
though in some years that matured
beauty, old enough to know better, dali
lies with grizzled winter until all save
the old-timer are inclined to think the
match is off there always comes
time when the broad Missouri freezes
over and the ice-houses grow full to
bursting. Autumn always falls into the
arms of winter before he eventually
succumbs to the fresher charms of
spring. Then is the opportunity for the
iceman.
This industry is carried on with less
elaboration than on the kennebec or
other Eastern streams, where the crop
mas been gathered for a century. or
perhaps more. There is less Of machin-
cry about it, as the amount itself gath
cred is less, but at the same time some
thing over 10000 tons are each year
hauled out of the water and into the
storehouses From this point the Mon
tana Central, the Boston and Montana
smelter, the Silver smelter, the enter
prises of Belt and Sand Coulee, all get
their supply, and in exceptional years
other outside towns are customers.
Most of the ice is cut on Broadwater
bay, the portion of the river Just above
the railway bridge, where it widens out
INTO the Semblance of a small lake.
Some ice, however, is cut from the Sun
river The water of the latter stream is
said to contain a larger percentage of
alkall, but in the winter season when
both streams are largely fed by the
melting of snow the difference is so
slight as to prove Neutrality-suspicious.,
and in the formation of ice it has al
ways been claimed that the water puri-
fies itself of all minerals. In cutting lit
tie machinery is employed. There is
marker and an ice-plow which cuts the
ice partially into large rectangular
blocks, which are then finished by the
old method of hand saving. Some of
the firms engaged in the business are
fortunate enough to be connected with
the field by runways operated by
horse power, but all of the smaller firms
cut their ice and drag it to the store
houses on sleds. The chief obstacle at
the present time to the establishment of
large pants is the fact that the land
along the river is owned by other than
the ice firms. and the latter can have
possession only by definite leases.
The weather up until few days has
not been favorable for the crop. All
through December there was warm
weather with a constantly blowing
Chinook wind which Wore the ice down
as fast as it formed. Then came the
cold snap, and the ice is now about
eight inches thick with protecting
mantle of snow. The latter acts in two
ways, retarding the formation of ice
and preventing loss from the sun or
the Chinook. However, the ice is thick
enough to set the icemen to sharpening
up their cross-cut saws and plows and
with a few days more of this weather
the surface of Broadwater bay will be
covered with teams and men.