In the early years, a variety of essential businesses arose to meet the needs of the people of that era. However, as time and inventions have changed people’s lives, many of those businesses once necessary to Union residents now belong to yesteryear. For example, an ice house and ice plant were indispensable for people before electricity brought refrigeration.
People longed for ice houses to be built and for ice or water wagons to deliver ice and cold water to their houses. In 1910, Walter Hunter operated a cold water and ice wagon. In 1911, P.G. Cooper built an ice house, followed
by E.H. Collier in 1913.
In 1916, C.T. Jenkins and Theo Staton answered the call. In 1919, J.L. Mott, called the “ice man,” delivered ice and water every day except Sunday. In April 1921, Watson opened an ice house as did Hubert Henry in 1922.
At that time, ice was shipped in by train and then stored in these ice houses. History reports that the town consumed a car of ice every few days. In 1919, the newspaper editor Sydney Stribling argued in an editorial that Union needed an ice plant to make its own ice rather than have it shipped in. He stated that the savings on freight would be a savings to the consumers. Also, making their own ice, the plant owners would be able to sell and ship ice by rail to nearby towns for a profit.
Before long, his suggestion became reality. In February 1923, H.A. Ray first opened Union Ice Co. at 105 W. Walnut Street. In 1924, J.T. Buntyn bought the Union Ice Co. from him. It burned in 1933, and Buntyn rebuilt and opened it the next year. He kept it until Oct. 1, 1946, when Odie V. Ware bought it from him. In the plant where walls were insulated with sawdust, they made 300-pound blocks of ice and then scored them into 100-pound blocks and then chipped them into 50 or 25-pound blocks for sale.
In addition to selling ice at his plant, Mr. Ware hired Mr. Prissock, Ray Hollingsworth, Medrick Ware and Truhitt Ware to help him deliver ice on regular routes to people who did not yet have electricity or a refrigerator and still used ice boxes.
Along these routes, the seller would also chip off even smaller blocks of ice and sell them for 10 or 25 cents to anyone who did not have an icebox. These people would wrap it and put it in a tub full of sawdust or in the chimney. Sessums Hotel became the largest buyer of ice. Ma Sessums bought a hundred pounds of ice almost every other day.
Around 1950, Ware sold his ice plant to a company in Raleigh and opened an ice house instead. He then brought ice from Philadelphia to store in it for resale. He sold his ice house to R. Elbert Waddell in April 1955, but the ice house was destroyed by fire in November of that same year. Waddell did not rebuild. However, Truhitt Ware bought the property and built another small ice house just south of the original one in the late 1950s. He soon sold it to Oliver Ware.
Near his ice house, Oliver built another small white frame building, which is still standing, to open his Quick Speed Laundry in 1967. Then in 1969, Grady and Bertha Blackwell bought Ware’s businesses: Grady sold ice and fish bait, and Bertha operated the Quick Speed Laundry. When Blackwell closed, Union no longer had an ice house business.
Because ice was in such demand, other ice houses or ice plants of which I can find no record might have lingered into the 1930s and 1940s. These final two memories might or might not have come from Mr. Buntyn’s business. In his collection of memories, the late Mr. Conan Whitten remembered having daily ice deliveries for years with Mr. Willie Mack Horton as one delivery man. He also recalled Mr. Clint Driskell cutting or chipping many 300-pound blocks of ice to the size wanted. He thought that the smallest one could buy was 12 and a half pounds. They would put a string around the block so it could be carried home.
In addition, the late Mr. Muriel Collins had told me that when there were no refrigerators, men delivered ice weekly into the country. He remembered Mr. Leon Sansing selling ice to the County Line area. If you have knowledge of another business, please contact me and I’ll add it to them.
Here are this week’s questions:
•Do you know when Grady Blackwell closed his business?
•Do you know where Reagan Motors was in 1936?
If you have additional information or memories to share, contact me at teresablount26@yahoo.com or 601-774-5564 or 109 Woodhaven Dr., Union, MS 39365.
