Texas Icehouses Melt Away
Texas Icehouses. Part town hall, part tavern, icehouses have been a South Texas tradition since the 1920s. Before refrigeration, icehouses stored and distributed block ice for the neighborhood iceboxes.
Over time, they diversified-- iced beer, a little food, maybe some groceries -- a cool, air-conditioned spot where neighbors and families come to sit, talk, play dominoes, turn up the juke box, maybe eat some chicken wings, dance on the slab outside. No two are alike -- Sanchez', Acapulco, Dos Hermanas, Stanley's, La Tuna, The Beer Depot, The Texan.
Once a vital part of everyday local culture -- a cornerstone of every neighborhood in San Antonio and Houston -- they are rapidly diminishing, an endangered species. The Kitchen Sisters take us on a journey into this Mexican-German-Tejano-Anglo tradition.
Story Notes
A lot of Kitchen Sisters stories are born in taxicabs. In fact, the whole Hidden Kitchens concept was conceived in the back of a Yellow cab in San Francisco. The icehouses of Texas came to our minds in a Checker in San Antonio. We were there last year on our way to an interview for our story on the Chili Queens when we saw an abandoned ice depot on the way and asked the driver what it was. He began to tell us the story of how ice was delivered to the neighborhoods and the birth of the icehouses all over town. We were hooked and lured a year later to document this faded but vibrant tradition, and to drink some Texas beer chilled on Texas ice.
Along the Road
Sterling Houston, author and playwright, grew up in and around icehouses in San Antonio. We spent one evening with Houston visiting some of his favorites. This is an excerpt from his novel, The Secret Oral Teachings of the Sacred Walking Blues:
The Ice House, which really did sell ice, but mostly sold ice-cold beer, cigarettes and soda water, was situated on a wedge of ground formed by the "x" of two dirt roads pretentiously called Hedges Street and Gevers Boulevard. This Ice House was not an actual house of ice but a tin shed cobbled together from the salvaged pressed tin ceiling panels of the Good Samaritan Colored Hospital torn down in 1948.
These were big tabletop-sized pieces of tin embossed with olive branch borders surrounding a central thistle bloom. Many of them were decorated with big cloudy stains caused when long-ago storms leaked through. These panels had been banged together on a skeleton of two-by-fours, and were decorated by colorful tin and porcelain advertising signs for Nehi, grapes, Lone Star, Pearl and Chesterfield Kings.
The resulting shed was topped by a roof of rusty corrugated tin, which hung out over the front, by several feet. This overhang was supported at its corners by stout posts made from sawed-off telephone poles. It gave the front of the place the look of a funky trading post, which in a way, it was.
Behind the little building and beside the outside toilet (which was not an outhouse, but a cabinet made of plywood packing crates built around a single, seatless commode) there grew an ancient mesquite tree. Although most mesquites grow squat and spread out like gnarled and signifying hands, this one had tapped into a deep spring, which fed it till it had grown twice the normal height. It had grown tall and twisty like a monster bonsai slanting lazily to shade the little shed from the furnace blast of mid-day mid-year mid century San Antonio Texas afternoons.
At times, groups of men gathered here to play cards, or loudly click dominoes and shout. Other times a lone man and his guitar and Kindhearted Woman and Have You Ever been Mistreated and sometime all of this at once plus me nine-years-old drinking Nehi grape and pineapple Hippo soda water. That time year day hour had frozen in amber suspended in the murmur of guitar strings trembling forever unresolved. Yeah. Secret."
Chilled Watermelon , 7-Elevens, Big Gulps and Slurpees
In the 1860s, there were three ice-manufacturing plants in San Antonio and only five others in the United States. By 1928, Southland Ice (later Southland Corp, now 7-Eleven Inc.) operated twelve ice plants and twenty retail ice docks in Dallas and San Antonio.
After one store placed a souvenir totem pole at its entrance, Southland stores came to be known as "Tote'm Stores," since customers toted away their purchases. They pioneered the practice of conveniently locating ice pickup stations in neighborhoods and by first selling chilled watermelon, then groceries and other items along with block ice -- helping to launch the convenience–store concept.
The difference between the icehouse and the icehouse-turned-modern-convenience-store is this, as one man said: " A Stop & Go is just that. This is a stop and stay. You put down anchors here."
9(MDAyNzUwMDI2MDEyNTA3MTU5NzcyNTQyNA004))
The people you hear in this story (in order of their appearance) are:
Rhett Rushing, Institute of Texan Cultures
John Ciabelli, Yellow Checker cab, San Antonio
Anonymous reveler at Sanchez Ice House
Randy Mallory, journalist and writer
Mike Ullrich, head doorman at La Mansion Del Rio, San Antonio
Bartender at The Texan
Shirley Denis, owner of The Beer Depot, San Antonio
Ronnie Gomez, aka Ronnie G.
Lillian Rangel, United Way, San Antonio
Ron Zimmerman, filmmaker, San Antonio
Cynthia Baker, corporate communications, 7-Eleven Inc.
Jerry Torres and the crew from Quality Tile at La Tuna Icehouse
Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson), with Laura Folger, Kate Volkman and Maria Walcutt. Mixed by Jim McKee
Special thanks to Texas Public Radio, KPAC, KSTX & KTXI in San Antonio and to Janet Grojean & Sonia Howle and Heather Hunter at The Texas Folklife Festival. Rhett Rushing and Tom Shelton at the Institute for Texas Cultures, Randy Mallory, Char Miller, Ron Zimmerman, George Cisnero & Lynn Gosnell, Cynthia Baker and 7-Eleven, Inc., Nola McKey and Texas Highways Magazine, John Griffin at San Antonio Express, Daniel Bradford and Paul Abrams, Archivists Joe Dobbs, Evan Hocker & Ben Grillot, Eric Bright at KERA, Dallas, Casey Monahan at Texas Center for Music, Geof Edwards, Anne Mason & Allie Sultan at ZAP Productions, 4th floor compadres, David Roberts & Tony Liano, Kalman Muller & Archivist James Mockoski at American Zoetrope, and to Stewart Vanderwilt & Hawk Mendenhall and KUT Austin.
For the sights... cold beer...the hang ... the spot: Sylvia Vidal and the gang at Sanchez Ice House, Mike Ulrich and the gang at The Texan Ice House, Sterling Houston and the hang at La Tuna Ice House, Shirley Denis at The Beer Depot, Dos Hermanas Ice House, Acapulco and The Alabama Ice House in Houston, and Adiós to Contreras Ice House.
For the music: Randy Thom & Kyle Gray, Susan & Jerry Jeff Walker, Cindy Cashdollar, Ray Benson, Sylvia Zamarripa at KAHL, San Antonio, Aaron Prado at Trinity College Radio KRTU, Jim Beal at San Antonio Express, John Morthland at Texas Monthly, Joe Goldmark & Amoeba Records. Special birthday shout out to Chris Strachwitz at Arhoolie Records.
- Another Side of Ice: Recipes for Homemade Peach Ice Cream, Pound Cake
- The Social History of Ice Cream
- 'The Frozen Water Trade'
- 7-Eleven Returns to NYC to Take On Bodegas
- Hidden Kitchen Mama
- Janete's Midnight Cabyard Kitchen
- The Club From Nowhere: Cooking for Civil Rights
- MAIN SERIES PAGE
- Another Side of Ice: Recipes for Homemade Peach Ice Cream, Pound Cake
- Another Side of Ice: Recipes for Homemade Peach Ice Cream, Pound Cake
- The Social History of Ice Cream
- 'The Frozen Water Trade'
- 7-Eleven Returns to NYC to Take On Bodegas
- Hidden Kitchen Mama
- Janete's Midnight Cabyard Kitchen
- The Club From Nowhere: Cooking for Civil Rights
- MAIN SERIES PAGE
- Another Side of Ice: Recipes for Homemade Peach Ice Cream, Pound Cake
- Another Side of Ice: Recipes for Homemade Peach Ice Cream, Pound Cake
- The Social History of Ice Cream
- 'The Frozen Water Trade'
- 7-Eleven Returns to NYC to Take On Bodegas
- Hidden Kitchen Mama
- Janete's Midnight Cabyard Kitchen
- The Club From Nowhere: Cooking for Civil Rights
- MAIN SERIES PAGE
- Another Side of Ice: Recipes for Homemade Peach Ice Cream, Pound Cake
- Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes and More from NPR's The Kitchen Sisters by The Kitchen Sisters
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
This is the time of year when you could fry an egg on the sidewalks in San Antonio, if you dared to go out on the sidewalks in San Antonio. It's the kind of heat that calls for ice.
JENNIFER LUDDEN, host:
Today, in this Hidden Kitchen story: the icehouses of Texas. It's a tradition that goes back more than a century to a time when ice was a utility like water or electricity.
Mr. MICHAEL ULLRICH (Head Doorman, La Mansion Del Rio Hotel, San Antonio, Texas): Hey, Grandpa. Are you there? How you doing? Oh, pretty good. Hey, I got a question for you. Remember that icehouse you used to go to and Pop used to go to? I think it's still there isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! Down on West Avenue. Oh, I'm doing fine. Yeah, I'm at work. Hey, I've got to run, Grandpa; I've got cars coming in. All right, we'll see you later. Love you.
Hey, there's a icehouse over on West Avenue. And he said everybody there is 150 years old. I'm off tomorrow. If you want me to take you over there, I can. I'm Michael Ullrich, the doorman at La Mansion Del Rio Hotel in San Antonio, Texas.
(Soundbite of guitar)
Mr. RHETT RUSHING (Staff Folklorist, Institute of Texas Cultures): An icehouse is easy to spot. You look for horseshoe pits outside. You look for domino tables that are worn slick. You can spot an icehouse by the sawdust, even though they don't store blocks of ice in sawdust anymore, you can still see the sawdust evident on the tables or the dance floor. Are the boards warped from having a thousand beers spilled on them over the last hundred years?
There are just clues. There are smells. What's the parking lot made out of? Crushed shell in southeast Texas - crushed limestone in the hill country. If there are not 47 billion bottle caps that have been run over by pickup trucks, then you're in the wrong place.
Mr. ULLRICH: That's the icehouse right there. That's it: The Texan. The garage doors are open.
Unidentified Speaker #1: No A/Cs. Sweating in your beer, it's so hot.
(Soundbite of train whistle)
Unidentified Woman #2: Train beer!
Unidentified Man #3: It's a train beer. Every time the train passes, you get a beer for a dollar, twenty-five.
Mr. RUSHING: The icehouse started off being where cut ice was stored. We didn't have refrigeration.
Mr. RUSHING: My name is Rhett Rushing, Institute of Texas Cultures here in San Antonio. Beforehand, getting ice was almost unheard of. All ice was harvested from northern lakes - Wisconsin, Minnesota - you know, wherever you had thick ice. And it was a major industry. You'd go out and you'd saw up the ice into blocks, pack it in sawdust, and they would load it on a ship to haul it as far south as they could. Sometimes they even made it to Galveston before it was gone.
Mr. JOHN CIABELLI (Taxi Driver, Yellow Checker Cab, San Antonio, Texas): Behold, icehouses! They were the first one to serve beer iced down. Sanchez's is a hidden place. It's underneath the bridge - underneath the freeway. If you drive by, you will not see it. You have to know where it's at. My name is John Ciabelli, Yellow Checker Cab in San Antonio, Texas. It gets packed at night. The whole lot is full of cars.
(Soundbite of music)
Unidentified Man #4: I mean, Sanchez's is the place to be. I mean, it's an old, old, hole-in-the-wall place and everything, but you have your lawyers, judges -oh, man, I mean, famous people come here, you know.
(Soundbite of music)
Unidentified Singer: (Singing) I ain't got a (unintelligible). I ain't got a (unintelligible).
Mr. RANDY MALLORY (Journalist): In the 1860s, there were three ice manufacturing plants in San Antonio. There were only five others in the entire U.S. My name is Randy Mallory. I'm a journalist in east Texas.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. MALLORY: German immigration came into Texas in the 1840s and needed beer.
(Soundbite of singing in German)
Mr. MALLORY: Germans and Czechs - a lot of little communities would have their own little breweries and, therefore, you'd have to have that ice.
(Soundbite of singing in German)
Mr. MALLORY: Growing up, my parents used to go to an icehouse when we were very, very little. They would bring the family. They'd buy the little kids the soda and potato chips and everything to keep them entertained while they were out there dancing and having a nice time and enjoying the music.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. RON ZIMMERMAN (Filmmaker): The conjuto style of music came from the icehouses that were up and down St. Mary's street south of the quarries where the Germans and the Mexican stonemasons got together in the evenings. You've got accordions, German rhythms and their Spanish lyrics. I'm Ron Zimmerman, filmmaker and resident of San Antonio.
(Soundbite of singing in Spanish)
Mr. ZIMMERMAN: In the early 1900s, people didn't have electrical refrigeration in their homes; they had iceboxes - put blocks of ice in it. And the ice plants built ice stations that were scattered all over neighborhoods and became neighborhood hangouts.
In the '20s, in Dallas, the Southland Ice Company had ice stations, and the one in Oak Cliff decided, why not sell a few other items - eggs, milk - right from the ice dock. And people liked that convenience - the longer hours. Southland Ice decided to expand it.
Initially, they were called totems. Someone had brought a totem pole from Alaska and put it out in front of one of these stores. At one point, they came up with the idea of seven-eleven - 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. - and that's the name that stuck.
(Soundbite of music)
Ms. CYNTHIA BAKER (Communications Manager, 7-Eleven): All of the things that have come out of 7-Eleven: the Slurpee, the Big Gulp, coffee-to-go. We want employees to understand that we began as a small icehouse. I'm Cynthia Baker, Communications Manager for 7-Eleven, Inc. We still offer ice because that's convenience. You have so many picnics and barbeques, and don't forget the bag of ice.
Unidentified Speaker #5: Well, it doesn't get any better than this and you feel it under the trees. Nice little breeze. Hundred-degree day. Having some beer with your comrades here.
(Soundbite of clinking bottles)
Unidentified Man #6: We're tile setters. (Unintelligible) together. We work together.
Unidentified Man #7: Cry together.
Unidentified Man #8: San Antonio's ice houses - they're like London's pubs or Paris street cafes or Vienna's coffee houses or Munich's beer halls. They're people's public living rooms.
(Soundbite of music)
LUDDEN: Our story was produced by The Kitchen Sisters, authors of the book Hidden Kitchens. The series is produced by Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson with Jay Allison. It's mixed by Jim McKee. You can find out more about Texas icehouses at npr.org.
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Jennifer Ludden.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
