The Conneaut Lake Ice
Company was formed in 1878 by Col. D.S. Richmond. Demand for
the lake’s crystal-clear ice was so great that two hundred
men were hired each winter to cut ice. It was then stored in
sawdust in ice storage houses located just east of today’s
Silver Shores restaurant. Over 100,000 tons of ice were
stored for summer shipment to Pittsburgh and throughout the region
and was enough ice to meet 1/3 the needs of New York City.
With its monopoly on the ice harvest, the company believed that it
“owned” the lake and began charging the Conneaut Lake
Navigation Co $1500 a year for exclusive passenger transportation
privileges and taxed private pleasure boats as well. A
little steamer, the Anita, was shipped from Pittsburgh to
Linesville by freight and taken to Hotel Midway where it was
launched. The ice company beached it and a lawsuit ensued
over the lake’s ownership. The court ruled the state
owned the lake as a public body of water, a ruling that still holds
today.
By the late 1920’s, modern refrigerators arrived on the scene
and the ice industry was becoming a thing of the past. In the
early 1930’s, the ice company ended its business and the ice
houses were torn down – to make way for progress. Ice
House Park is located on the former Reimann’s Marina
property, west of the former Conneaut Lake Ice Company.
Conneaut Lake is the largest natural lake in Pennsylvania. The
glacial lake was formed in the Pleistocene period when a large
block of ice broke off of a receding ice front and was surrounded
by earth and sediment. When the ice melted, the lake now called
Conneaut was born. The surface area of Conneaut Lake is
approximately 947 acres. Its average depth is 19 feet with a
maximum depth of 60 feet.
To permit the construction of the Beaver and Erie Canal , the lake
level was raised about 10 ft in the 1820's with the construction of
a small dam. The outlet also lured the first white settler, Abner
Evans, who used its water to power his grist mill. A village called
Evansburg, now Conneaut Lake, grew up around Evans’ mill and
log cabin. The coming of the Erie Extension Canal, operated from
1843 to 1870, gave the village access to the outside world. In the
1870's the lake was returned to its natural elevation and the dam
remains for flood control.
The old canal ran along the nearby winery’s entrance driveway
and is still intact just southeast of the building.