Cold work, warm memories

Memories of the once vibrant business are still fresh for Bagley. But the only remaining portion of the ice house -- a cluster of cement walls -- has deteriorated. By January, even that will be gone, as a developer plans to demolish the site and replace it with two homes. When the demolition is complete, the last reminder of an era when refrigerators did not exist, and town residents depended on the delivery of ice from R.H. White to fill their ice boxes, will be gone.

Wesley Cote, a Holbrook historian, said the local ice house, perhaps one of the last such structures in the state, symbolized a simpler time in history, when the town was much smaller and residents had fewer material possessions.

"I grew up in those years," said Cote, 79. "I wouldn't trade those days for anything."

The ice house was a thriving industry for the town. Lemuel Bagley employed dozens of Holbrook residents, who worked year-round. Cote said the business provided jobs for many even during the Depression era of the 1930s.

The ice house stored 40,000 tons of ice in the two wooden towers and cement building, and shipped 125 tons of ice to Boston and Fall River daily, Bill Bagley said.

"Bagley's Ice House," as it was also called, was considered the largest in the area, although all the ice houses, including those in Randolph and Norton, helped each other harvest the ice from nearby ponds in the winter.

To collect the ice, Bagley said, workers sawed off massive chunks, then guided the "cakes" with poles toward the ice house. Once out of the water, the ice was cut into blocks outside, then stored in the ice house for months. The work was generally safe, Cote said, but hazardous enough that two workers were killed on separate occasions while hauling and storing the ice.

Lake Holbrook was a bustle of activity besides the ice work, other residents say. "I remember going down skating when I was a kid," said Marion Colburn, 86, chairwoman of the Holbrook Historical Commission.

According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, there were some 30 ice houses scattered around the state. Deb Cabral, the commission's public outreach coordinator, said no comprehensive study has ever been done on the structures, and the commission knows of no surviving ice house in the state.

The cement building of the Holbrook ice house lost its roof during a powerful hurricane in 1938 and never reopened. Both wooden towers had already burned in separate fires in 1925 and 1935.

Bagley said that by the time the ice house closed, the industry had slowed, as refrigeration became available. And although the Bagleys continued to sell ice, purchasing it from an artificial icemaker in Boston, they also began to set their prospects elsewhere, by selling home heating oil.

Other changes helped bring an end to the Holbrook ice house. Cote said for a few years winters were less severe, preventing the pond from freezing solidly. And life simply got busier, he said.

Bagley said he is indifferent to the impending demolition of the ice house building, although he acknowledged it had become an eyesore in the neighborhood. He said he plans to be there the day the dense walls, reinforced with steel, are torn down, to see how it will be done.

"I'm waiting for the day. I want to be there and see it," he said.

Kalimah Redd can be reached kredd@globe.com.