In the nineteenth century ice harvesting became popular in Maine. In the early 1800's the first ice shipped out from Bath, Maine. This was the beginning of ice harvesting. Then in the later 1820's the first ice house was built in Richmond, Maine. Approximately 40 years later James L. Cheeseman gathered roughly 30,000 tons of ice. In 1886 the Kennebec River topped the million ton on ice production. The great blocks from the Kennebec were actually called the "Kennebec Diamonds."

People located around the world relied on Skowhegan ice harvesting. This gave local fisherman, and farmers a winter activity, while it gave the housewives a opportunity to board workers. This was a difficult process, because it was backbreaking and below 30 degrees.

The process was: the workers would wait for the water to freeze, it had to be hard enough and at least 2 feet thick. This ice was thick and frozen hard enough so that they could stand on it.

They would use ice saws to cut the ice loose. Ice poles and ice tongs, were used to push the blocks of ice to a conveyor belt that carried the ice into the ice house. In some places horses were used to pull what was called a scoring machine, which was used instead of an ice saw.

Sometimes the horses were attached to a hook that brought the ice to the conveyor belt. The horses did not slip because they wore shoes that were called caulks which had spikes on the bottom that would dig into the ice, to prevent the horses from slipping. Ice was used for refrigerators in some Skowhegan homes until the 1960s.

Maria Gamage is an eighth grader at Skowhegan Area Middle School.