laststandonzombieisland

Figured some of you old steam/diesel heads may enjoy this a bit.

As a bit of background, the Pascagoula Ice House and Freezer Company was established in the 1880s and its primary building was constructed in 1903 as a streetcar, railway, and power company in addition to its principal ice-making operation.

As noted by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History: “It is the only example of Mission Revival Style architecture in Pascagoula and one of the oldest in the state. This campus once housed business offices, a fifty-ton ice machine, three dynamos, each with a fourteen-foot flywheel, two large engines, and a street car service, which ran from 1903 to 1921.”

You can be sure that shipbuilders at Ingalls in both world wars, along with their plankowner crews, sipped lemonade and sweet tea cooled with the old Ice House’s products.

The Ice House remained in operation until 2012 when it was closed after a fire, and at that time was the last of the old-school block ice plants still operating in the state in the 21st century. A multi-million dollar plan to save the historic structure endorsed by the city a couple of years ago fell through, as things often do in Pascagoula, and the Ice House was recently demolished.

I stopped by last week and took some snapshots of all that is left, a well-rusted circa 1921 Fairbanks-Morris 200 hp stationary diesel power unit and a pair of very stripped Frick reciprocating ammonia refrigerant compressors from roughly the same era.

Word is a local university is looking to save at least one of these old beasts but I’d wager that would likely tank as well. A better option may be to have one as a macro display at the Maritime Seafood Industry Museum in Biloxi, a logical choice as the Ice House was key to the local shrimp and oyster concerns for decades.