The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-08-23
BIG TRADE In ice
in Week 100000 Pounds
Handled Locally.
Hot Weather Increased the De-
mand for Cold Stuff.
TOOK NEARLY FIFTY WAGONS
Topeka Companies Been Taxed
to Capacity in Delivery.
There Have Been Many Ship
ments to Outside Points.

The intense heat of the last week
has created a heavy demand for ice
in Topeka and surrounding towns
Local plants have been taxed to their
capacity in handling more than four
million pounds of the cold stuff in
this period of seven days. More than
half of this frozen water has been
delivered to residences and hotels in
the city by nearly fifty big delivery
wagons and auto trucks, while the bal
ance has been used locally for cold
storage purposes. shipped to other
towns and used in icing refrigerator
cars. 1t is true the demand has de-
creased slightly since the change in
weather.
If placed 1ensthwise the blocks of
ice handled by Topeka concerns in the
last week would make a string that
would stretch almost to TecumSeh ana
return. The Topeka ice industry, it
will be seen has reached enormous
proportions, but it is a business that
flourisheS in warm weather only.
While there is a certain amount OF de-
mand for the product in the winter
months it is necessary for the local
firms to discharge a large number of
employees and send a large number
of their horses to the country.
How the Ice Is Handled.
There are two Topeka companies
that undertake the distribution of ice
to local conSumerS-the Peoples Ice
and Storage company. Each concern
has more than twenty delivery wagons
in use every day and two auto trucks
The wagons have regular routes to
cover and at certain hours each day
are met by the auto trucks which
carry additional supplies of ice.
These wagons and trucks handle
enough ice in Topeka each day to e.
low six pounds for every man, woman
and child in the city. There are hun
,1Y of faY
customers, but the hotel proprietorS
and housewives in the sections of the
city where the well-to-do reside have
heavy ice bills each week while the
hot weather is the order of things.
The Peoples Ice and Fuel company
is simply d distributing concern-iI
rnanufa ctures no ice. The firm handles
the surplus ice of the Wolff Packing
company, the Continental Creamery
company, the Topeka Cold Storage Ice
and Fuel company, and the Seymour
Packing company. Aside from the reg
uiar town trade the company furnishes
the Santa Fe and Union Pacific rail-
way companies ice for about fifty re-
frigerator cars each week this season
of the year.
In speaking of the ice business in To-
peka G. T. Lawrence. manager of the
sPeople's Ice and Fuel company said
today: 1T is a losing game from the
first of October until the first of May.
There are four and one-half months in
the year when big business is done.
Our firm employs from sixty to sixty
five persons when the trade is brisk
and has twenty four teams in use. II
the fall it becomes Necessary for US 10
discharge a large number of our en-
pIoyees and we turn some of the horses
out in the country. A small percent
age of the people of Topeka take ice
the year round. We have eight routes
in opera ton in the winter months
The Mutual Ice and Cold Storage
company manufactures its own ice the
output being sixty-five tons daily. TIL,
firm has storage capacity for a large
amount of ice which is made and stored
in the winter months when business is
slack. The company has a large stor-
age house at Eleventh and Buchanan