The Ice Famine of 1919

Imagine August in Coastal Georgia without ice. For residents of Brunswick in 1919, the scarcity of ice became a hot-button topic. On August 3, the Brunswick News headline spoke to the gravity of the issue: “Citizens Hold Up Drivers of Glynn Ice Wagon: Ice Procurable at the Muzzle of a Revolver.” Glynn Ice Company was not supplying enough ice for its customers, and the pages of the Brunswick News chronicled the ongoing “ice famine.”

The easiest target was prominent businessman and Glynn Ice Company president F.D.M. Strachan. One letter to the editor claimed that an ice wagon driver had been directed to deliver only to Strachan’s Union Street mansion and his St. Simons Island beach house. Strachan’s nephew William MacPherson responded that the driver had no such orders. Besides, Strachan was at his estate in Oyster Bay, New York. MacPherson assured readers that the ice shortage was caused by a lack of larger capacity equipment that would be delivered and installed by November.

A representative of the Glynn Ice Company directors reported that “the directors gave serious consideration” to the Brunswick News’ suggestion to cut deliveries to non-essentials such as drug stores and cold drink stands. The directors, though, “reached the conclusion that, as many citizens are constantly at their places of business and desire a cold drink it would not be well to deprive them of the privilege of obtaining [the] same.” The newspaper fired back: “Soda water is a luxury…ice in a sick room, or in a family refrigerator in August weather, is a necessity which is at times essential to life itself.”

The situation led to surprising behavior from the citizenry. The newspaper claimed that a “widely practicing physician was obliged to secure ice at the point of a revolver for a sick patient.” In another case, an ice company director drove off with an ice wagon when he thought a group of “a half dozen of the best businessmen in the city were going to loot one of his wagons.”

A committee appointed by the mayor called upon nearby cities for assistance, but they had limited supplies. Local entrepreneurs stepped in, proposing the construction of a second ice factory and the sale of home ice makers. Finally, two men who hoped to obtain the Coca-Cola bottling franchise in Brunswick brought relief from the “famine” by delivering two trainloads of ice from Savannah.

This month’s image from the Coastal Georgia Historical Society archives is a Glynn Ice Company advertisement that appeared in the October 15, 1926, issue of the Brunswick Pilot. It reminded the reader of the year-round importance of ice. Our thanks to former Society board member Patty Deveau for her contribution to this article.