What is The Ice House?
This multi-use building is a former ice-making factory!
What Makes Them Historical?
The five Babbitt brothers (David, Billy, Charlie, George and Edward) came to Flagstaff from Cincinnati at the turn of the 20th Century to be ranchers, and well, they were good at it but far from content with just ranching! So they put a lot of work into their new home town, setting up trading posts, a bank, a meat-packing plant, mercantile, mortuary, and auto dealership! The ice house was a small idea when it was devised in 1902, a way for locals to keep their food and homes cool, but Flagstaff wasn’t an isolated town! The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad had arrived twenty years earlier, and those train cars were hauling goods that needed to be kept cool! That boosted demand plenty, but nothing could compare to the arrival of Route 66 in 1926!
The Babbitt’s flattened and rebuilt their ice house in 1931 to keep up with a steadily increasing demand for ice, but by 1946, with trucking and tourism exploding along the Mother Road, the demands on the ice house had tripled to one thousand six hundred tons per year! So, they revised once again with the Babbitt Ice Plant in 1947, boasting three times the freezing capacity and five times the storage space! It became the main ice distribution hub for Flagstaff, Williams, and the whole Grand Canyon area!
How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?
- Volunteer with the Northern Arizona Pioneers’ Historical Society!
- Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!
How Do I Get There?
201 E Birch Ave
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
(Take Me There!)
When Should I Visit?
This is a multi-use building, so there are no tours or set hours!