I enjoy visiting the largest, oldest and biggest of anything. The Antique Ice Tool Museum did not disappoint.

Housed in a fully restored 1834 Chester County bank barn, the museum contains the largest private collection of natural ice artifacts in the country.

And thankfully, it is located nearby at 825 Sconnelltown Road, West Chester.

Everything in the museum is one-of-a-kind and unique. No two items are the same.

Everybody has to have a hobby. Peter Stack formerly owned and operated Brandywine Ice and has spent a lifetime collecting.

This world-class museum features colorful trucks and wagons, ice boxes, augers, saws, a casket to keep them “on ice” and my favorites, 450 ice picks.

The ice picks were used as marketing give-a-ways and they feature advertising.

Those ice picks remind us of an earlier time. Remember free matchbooks and pens?

As a 12-year-old, Peter Stack worked for his father’s ice business in Middletown, N.Y.

Starting in 1975, for more than 30 years, Stack and wife Joann operated Brandywine Ice in West Chester and Aston.

Farming the natural ice crop altered our lives.

“It’s an industry that forever changed the way we live,” Stack said. “Today we take our ice for granted.”

During the 18th Century it was the second largest U.S. export business, after the cotton.

Milwaukee kept its beer cold, Chicago put a chill to beef, dairy products were preserved longer and seafood stayed fresh. Daily trips to the market were no longer necessary.

Dozens of ice boxes are on display.

Stack shows both residential and commercial ice boxes that were lovingly and painstaking collected.

The museumgoer can move from piece to piece, while witnessing the evolution and improvement of ice storage boxes.

The natural ice industry lasted more than 150 years until it fizzled in the 1940s with the advent of electric refrigerators and freezers.

In 1805, Frederick Tudor “The Ice King” commercially harvested and shipped ice as a luxury product to Martinique.

During the 1820s, Nathaniel Wyeth teamed with Tudor to use a horse-drawn plow to score the ice into large “floats,” thus tripling the amount harvested. Ice was then shipped world-wide.

During the 1840s, the industry shifted from exportation to domestic expansion, with local U.S. companies operating near large bodies of water. Eventually railroad cars and cargo ships were used to distribute frozen water.

The ice trade between the South and North was the first casualty of the Civil War. By the 1870s, the first refrigerator rail car hit the tracks transporting California produce.

During the 1880s, demand for ice grew. Four million tons of ice was stored along both the Hudson River in New York and the Kennebec River in Maine.

The U.S. Census noted that 4,800 ice plants employed 160,000 people. Forty million tons of ice was harvested during the 1920s.

In the 1930s, the natural ice trade shrunk due to the rapidly expanding artificial ice trade.

The Stack Family has done a wonderful job restoring the barn and property constructed by stone mason William Ingram.

The project is ongoing. Stack showed me a 1928 Chevy truck that he is fully restoring.

The tour starts with a comprehensive timeline presentation and then progresses to the third floor of antique trucks.

Transportation contributed to make it an expensive trade, natural ice wasn’t always sanitary and you couldn’t always depend on production due to the weather.

Keeping ice cream, burritos and hamburgers frozen is now taken for granted.

Regardless, I’ll take my diet Mountain Dew with plenty of ice, please.

Thanks to the inventor of the ice cube tray!

You can tour the museum with a guide or take a self-guided audio tour. The tours are chock full of wonderful tidbits and cast a comprehensive view of the industry.

You learn how life was different in the 18th Century.

Tours are given only by appointment only November to April. You can show up on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon, from May to October. Tours are free to the public.

Go to www.AntiqueIceToolMuseum.org for more information.

Bill Rettew Jr. is a weekly columnist and Chester County native. He likes his ice cold. You may contact him at brettew@dailylocal.com

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