[Chickie]

There were two ice houses (separate ice companies) on adjoining lots across the street from McDonald’s. The largest one was the Independent Ice Co. and nearly filled the entire lot from where the animal hospital is today to Bayside Cemetery. The building had 12 bays, was 300 feet wide and 144 feet deep and 44 feet high. It was a company out of Massachusetts or Rhode Island, I believe, and they shipped ice to Boston and beyond. It operated until about 1934. The building was then sold and used to grow mushrooms under the name of the New Hampshire Mushroon Co. The building was destroyed in a spectacular fire in 1936 and the land was then purchased by George Barton who erected a cabin colony on the lot known as the Ox-Bow Cabins.

The other ice house was a smaller one built by John H. Dow. It was purchased by William Rudzinski, Sr. in 1918 and operated under the name of the Lakeport Ice Co. It burned to the ground in a fire in 1929. The Rudzinskis disassembled an older ice house located a few miles away and moved it piece-by-piece to the lot where it was reassembled. They then resumed the operation and continued to harvest their ice from Paugus Bay each winter as before. The name of the business eventually became known as the Laconia Ice Co. After William Rudzinski’s death in 1941, his wife continued to operate the business with the help of her sons. Their last ice harvest was in 1964.