Maine Lake Ice Company Remnants (BUS.14)

Remnants of the Maine Lake Ice Company

When George B. Foster from Montauk Point, Long Island summered in Sargentville in the 1890s, he saw business potential in the proximity of the fresh water of Walker Pond to the nearby deep seawater of the Punch Bowl.  He knew that ice was a scarce commodity in the urban centers of the coast and that many well-to-do city dwellers had the money to pay for it. In 1899 Foster and other investors formed a company and began construction of the Maine Lake Ice Company. In 1911, George’s son Charles Kirkpatrick Foster arrived in Sargentville, first to manage the Ice Company, then to shut it down and, finally, to dismantle it.

Though successful in its’ day, the advent of electrical refrigeration brought an end to the ice company in 1916. Charles tore down all of the building and runways and sold off the lumber and equipment. Now there is little or nothing left of the conveyor systems, machines and massive ice houses of the Maine Lake Ice Company.  David and Ellen Simmons of Sargentville took these photos in Brooksville and Sargentville of some of what remains of the granite foundations that used to support the runways to the ice houses, and the piers where the schooners docked to load on the blocks of ice.