Rhinelander Refrigeration Co.
Rhinelander Refrigeration Co.
As soon as it was apparent the days of lumbering in northern Wisconsin were numbered, city leaders began looking for industries to establish business in Rhinelander. In 1902, the Rhinelander Manufacturing Company was formed and purchased the plant of the Kirk Box Factory which had been sitting idle since 1897. The idea was to use the empty buildings near the Pelican River for the manufacture of refrigerators.
The concept was a good one. Under the direction of Joseph Bruns and Rudolph Riek, both young men from Fond du Lac, the company flourished. At the end at the time of their hiring, both men were working at Bowen Manufacturing, a company which also dealt in refrigerators – Bruns was superintendent and Riek worked in the office. Their experience with vital to the newly named Rhinelander Refrigerator Company.
By the spring of 1903, thirty refrigerators were being turned out daily. The first was sold to local businessman, Ed Forbes. Rhinelander hardware dealers, Dunn & Wood, were chosen to handle sales.
Early models were made of oak, ash and birch.
By 1929, modern refrigerators were being made in porcelain and steel, with a new “air-conditioning” cooling system to circulate air around the ice. The company had also extended its branch offices to include New York City, Chicago, San Fransisco, Cleveland, Kansas City, Detroit, New Orleans, Dallas, and Savannah, Georgia.
Several circumstances came together to bring about the closing of the Refrigerator Company — the Depression, anti-trust laws, and competition with electric models. By 1937, the company closed for good. The site is now occupied by Pelican River Estates and many of the old Rhinelander Refrigerators now sit in homes of collectors.
With Christmas right around the corner, collectors may also find a reminder of the Rhinelander Refrigerator Company under their old-fashioned tree. In 1910, Rudolph Riek invented a metal Christmas tree holder, the patent of which was purchased by the company and the holders were sold throughout the community under the Rhinelander Refrigerator Co. name.
Where did the ice come from?
In Rhinelander the majority the ice was cut out of Boom Lake. So if you have been up by Hodag Park, that is where Boom Lake is. It was formed when the damn was put in the river. It was formed because there were as many as eight sawmills around the lake and they would bring the logs by the river and then they would be sorted for each of the mills. The logs had a stamp on the end so that The Pelican Boom Company men could tell which logs went to what Saw Mill. In the winter, when the lake was frozen over, men would go out there and cut big blocks of ice out of the lake and store them in an Ice House. Here in Rhinelander the icehouse was behind where the fire station is now. They would pack those blocks of ice in sawdust and it would stay pretty well frozen until the following winter when they would fill the icehouse again. Saw dust is a very good insulator; if they could have only figured out how to make it fire retardant it could've had a lot of other good uses. As the story goes, the Iceman would come around, probably on a weekly basis. He had a wagon pulled by a single horse, and the horse was so well-trained that it would advance to the next house and stop so he could spend his time on the back using tongs, like we have here, to grab a block of ice and be able to carry it into the house. If it was a hot summer’s day and there were children playing in the yard, and if it appeared they were well behaved, he might chip off a little piece of ice and give it to them as a treat. Much like if we got a popsicle today, it would be a treat for us much like that piece of ice was a treat for the children back then. So we can pretty well guess that the children were on their best behavior with the Iceman was in the neighborhood.