Placed with permission from Miss Margaret and special thanks to Ella Trujillo from the Carlin Historical Society for all of the great pictures and information.
Carlin’s Ice Harvesting Industry
One of the most talked about parts of Carlin’s history is the ice harvesting industry that blossomed because of the railroad. Once again, Carlin’s abundant water sources gave it a leg up. In addition to water sources, it also would get extremely cold in Carlin. Cold enough to make ice. In the old days, if you wanted to keep something cold you had to use ice. Refrigerators weren’t a “thing” yet. Railroad cars going east or west had to be “iced” to keep anything perishable, like fruit or vegetables, from spoiling. Dams were built to create ponds where ice would form and then be cut in the winter and stored in ice houses. The ice would be used in the summer to keep the heat at bay.
Early on ice was shipped to Carlin from other places, such as the Boca ice plant in Truckee, California or Hazen, Nevada, south of Fernley, Nevada. But the railroads, both the Southern Pacific and the Union Pacific, recognized the need for more “icing stations” along the route, especially because sometimes a “crop” of ice could fail. More locations meant a better chance of always having ice. The companies formed a new company called the Pacific Fruit Express Company. In 1907, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company announced a new icing station would be built at Carlin. This would mean that ice would be loaded at Truckee and Ogden with Carlin in the middle. The S.P. built a dam on the Humboldt and filled the newly built “pond” with the river. The new pond would be the largest in the western United States. It was completed in 1909. Eventually, the ponds would cover an area of 50 acres!
Unfortunately, the local “residents” didn’t take too kindly to the new enterprise for in its first year a muskrat burrowed a hole in the dam and released all the water. The harvest was supposed to begin the following day and it was a complete loss. However, their didn’t appear to be too much trouble in the coming years. The plant employed many locals and out-of-towners each year. In addition to providing jobs, the plant also provided recreation for locals.
Starting in 1913, the Southern Pacific began to allow the locals to ice skate on the ponds and the Eureka Sentinel newspaper reports that “every night the ice is covered with young people.” The Western Pacific Railroad, whose tracks ran south of the Southern Pacific tracks, would build its own ice house and ice ponds.
The Pacific Fruit Express (Southern Pacific) ice complex had two ice houses. In 1945, one of the icehouses caught on fire and the flames could be seen from Battle Mountain. The resulting loss for the Pacific Fruit Express Company was $250,000. The ice house was empty at the time which is why the fire was so intense.
The Western Pacific also had it’s own large ice house and ponds farther south along its tracks. Most of Carlin’s older residents say they don’t remember it so it is not clear how long it was there but it was certainly nothing to sneeze at.
However, the ice harvesting industry would fade away with the invention of refrigerated railroad cars. Ice was no long needed. Eventually, the ponds were left dry and the ice houses would store freight instead of ice. Most of the buildings that were part of the Southern Pacific ice plant complex burned or were tore down. It is not known when or how the Western Pacific ice house was lost. In 1996, the last remaining structure, the second ice house, was torn down by the current owners because of the danger of fire. And so, another part of Carlin’s past, though one of the best remembered, disappeared.