Tulsa Ice Co Building-Now and Then

Before the electric refrigerator became a ubiquitous household appliance people used iceboxes to store food. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, and peaking around 1890-1900, ice houses stored ice that had either been naturally harvested or artificially created until it made it’s way to the customer. The ice man in his horse-drawn ice wagon (and later in ice trucks) would then make regular door-to-door deliveries of block ice and was as much a social institution as the milk man.

One such ice house was Tulsa Ice Co. Located at East Sixth Street and Xanthus Avenue, it was renovated in 2013 and is now home to Selser Schaefer Architects.