After an awfully cold winter that put the area in a deep freeze, it’s a fine time to revisit an era when frigid temperatures were not a nuisance but a livelihood. At the Quogue Wildlife Refuge, the Ice Harvesting Exhibit brings that frozen past vividly to life, reminding visitors that before electric refrigeration, winter itself powered a thriving industry on Long Island.
Inside a weathered wooden building overlooking the Old Ice Pond, the story of the frozen trade unfolds. A mural recreates the scene in 1913 when men in heavy coats guided horses across a sheet of glassy ice. Snow has already been cleared with V-shaped plows and scrapers, leveling the surface for cutting. Before a single block could be harvested, the ice had to reach at least five inches in thickness. Workers tested it with an auger and measuring rod, knowing that men and horse teams would soon stand atop it.
Once cleared and measured, the ice field was marked into a checkerboard. An iron point etched guidelines, sometimes aligned with a surveyor’s theodolite. Then came the horse-drawn ice plow, its coarse teeth carving deep grooves. A swinging guide resting in the previous cut kept the grid straight. A second horse-drawn saw cut deeper—nearly two-thirds of the way through—while long hand saws finished the work. By the end, the frozen pond resembled a vast, neatly scored mosaic.
Harvesting began by opening a channel of water to float the blocks toward shore. Men used breaking bars and long-handled chisels to free individual cakes of ice, typically 22 by 32 inches. Sheets of ice were pushed with pike poles toward a remarkable machine: an “undershot” conveyor powered by a 20-horsepower steam engine housed in the very building where the museum now stands. The concrete footing for that engine remains on the floor, a silent testament to the roar and rhythm that once filled the space.
Moving at 100 feet per minute, the elevator chain could carry 400 to 500 tons of ice per hour into the storage house. One man fed blocks onto the chain while 15 to 20 others stacked them inside. As the pile rose, the conveyor had to be lifted manually to continue building upward.
Storage was an art in itself. Blocks were layered with sawdust or hay for insulation. The Quogue Ice Company’s storage house foundation—64 by 78 feet—still outlines the site near today’s wildlife complex. Painted white to reflect heat and carefully drained, a properly filled house could preserve ice for two or three years. Companies often stored one-third more than expected demand.
The Quogue Ice Company emerged in response to the growing population of summer visitors in the late 19th century. After federal regulations in 1914 prohibited damming of Quantuck Creek, operations shifted north of the railroad tracks to Fairy Dell, where the Old Ice Pond was dredged to a depth of five to seven feet.
But the industry’s success carried seeds of decline. Industrial pollution threatened natural ice supplies, and mechanical refrigeration advanced rapidly. By the 1920s, household refrigerators were becoming commonplace. In 1925, the Quogue Ice Company ceased production.
Today, the quiet pond and preserved machinery recall an era when winter was harvest season and ice—clear, hard, and glittering—was Long Island’s cold currency.