Ice Harvesting: A Look at the Knowlton Collection

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Ice Harvesting: A Look at the Knowlton Collection

By Laura Fitzgerald Mickey and Agnes Knowlton In the 1800s and early 1900s, Port Huron was home to a booming ice industry. Dozens of ice houses lined the Black River. Teams of horse-drawn plows and men wielding pickaxes and other tools descended on Blue Water Area waterways each winter to carve huge blocks of ice. This ice was distributed locally and around the country as one of the largest industries of its time. Mickey and Agnes Knowlton pres…