Author’s Note: Special thanks to artist and bluesman Mr. Bobby Whalen, my father, Mr. Dorsey M. White, Jr., and my sister, Mrs. Erie Von Jackson, for generously sharing their memories of the ice house on Church Street. This narrative is dedicated to Mr. Mitchell Lee Holloway and Mr. Wilton “Baldy” White.
In the 1940s, the ice house in Indianola, located near D. Collotta’s and the Dixie Theater on Church Street, was an “L-shaped” wooden plank building with a porch where customers purchased 25-, 50-, or 100-pound blocks of ice. They could back their trucks into the middle of the L-shape, and employees would load the ice onto the truck bed. A prong, shaped like a pair of scissors, was used to lift the ice and place it where needed. The ice house also sold ice picks—sharp, pointed metal tools attached to handles—but stopped offering them after they were used in fights.
Before modern refrigeration became commonplace, people relied on ice boxes—insulated wooden cabinets with a compartment for a block of ice to keep food cold. In the years before refrigeration became widely available, the ice house was an essential resource in Southern towns like Indianola. It was a bustling place, serving not only homes but also local businesses, cafes, and plantations that depended on it for their daily needs. Most restaurants and cafes, lacking air conditioning, needed ice to keep their drinks cool and purchased it from the ice house. Some improvised by using a #10 tub—a large, round galvanized metal container—filling it with ice and drinks, then covering it with a cloth to keep everything cool. Ice was also crucial for preventing perishable items from spoiling.
A familiar sight on summer mornings was a line of ten to twenty field trucks at the ice house, as plantation workers waited for their blocks of ice. The ice was chipped and placed in large barrels of water, filled from a hydrant, to quench the thirst of field workers chopping and picking cotton.
This routine was essential for workers who labored in the hot, humid Delta heat for twelve or more hours each day.
My beloved cousin Wilton often talked about how, at age six, he earned spending money by hauling 25-pound blocks of ice to cafes and businesses on Church Street for five cents a load, using a borrowed Radio Flyer wagon in the late 1940s. Similarly, in the early 1950s, my oldest sister, Erie Von, was sent to the ice house by our Aunt Johnnie at the age of six. She carried a 25-pound block of ice wrapped in a croker sack, using the red Radio Flyer wagon she had received for Christmas. Mitchell Lee Holloway, a kind little Black boy around seven years old who lived on Clay Street, noticed her struggling with the block of ice on Church Street and helped carry it the rest of the way. Church Street was a safe place during those years, and children were given far more chores and responsibilities at that age than the youth of today.
In those days, air conditioning was nonexistent in Southern homes. To stay cool, people raised their windows to circulate outside air. Likewise, without refrigerators, families had to carefully plan their meals. Perishable items like milk, meat, butter, and cheese had to be kept cold, and several trips to the ice house each week were often necessary. Every home had an ice box, where a block of ice was used to keep meat from spoiling, with the meat stored at the bottom of the ice box to keep it as cold as possible. An ice pick was used to chip the block of ice into smaller pieces. In the 1960s, a typical 25-pound block of ice cost 25 to 30 cents.
Today, life is much more
convenient. Homes have air conditioners and refrigerators with built-in freezers, and many refrigerators now come equipped with built-in ice makers. People can also purchase standalone countertop ice makers or easily buy bagged ice from grocery and convenience stores, as well as from standalone ice machines.
