04/21/1971
By ANN CARROLL
READERS: Who'd have thought Chris P. Fox of the State National Bank was once "the ice man!" Follows, in two parts, his story of his boyhood job. It's El Paso history. The Route of the Consumer's Ice Company Wagon No. I...
Wholesale
By CHRIS P. FOX
To be a helper on this particular route in the wonderful year of 1913, in the city of El Paso, required a pretty fair knowledge of the-community, and equally so, a willingly strong body possessed of a back that could, when necessity demanded, take a 200-pound piece of ice up a 40 tread staircase.
Also, this person should be ready and willing to get up at 3:30 a.m. and walk from a residence at 1315 North Campbell street down to the Consumer Corral, which was on South Campbell street between First and Second streets and Florence street to the east.
When this young person sleepily got to the corral lot, he would get out the big span of Missouri mules. Pat and Mike, and give them a good brush and curry, put on their harness and hitch them to old wholesale No. 1 and drive it over to the ice plant loading dock, and carefully back it into position ... set the brake and wrap the lines around the brake handle and go into the office where-the general manager, Will Kellett, would be giving the driver, Earl McElroy, the orders for the day.
Then it was into the ice vaults and there followed the loading of thirty 300-lb. blocks of crystal clear ice for the first trip of the morning which got us away from the dock about 4:15 a.m.
Now it must be remembered that a neighborhood ice route was looked upon as being much more respectable than downtown wholesale route No. 1 ... they said it was on the neighborhood route, that nice people met a nice driver usually and always the wagons and teams were spic and span. Downtown wholesale No. 1 was just a workhorse of the deal that brought in plenty of good fat revenue.
The route that was traveled never varied, except when a new customer was obtained, or when an old one was lost. When the latter happened and if it was the routeman's fault, he would expect that Mr. Kellett would chew as hard on the driver as he did on his cigar stump.
On his route we had all the saloons, hotels and eating establishments that were customers of consumer's. Below I will name you a few and among them the most popular of the day.
The Lobby, which was always a good watering place, as was the Angelus Hotel Bar and the Palace at 205 San Antonio avenue and on the corner of Santa Fe street and San Francisco avenue was the fabulous Palm Garden, We are not forgetting the equally famous and or infamous, Wigwam at 105 San Antonio street, the bar on the street level, a bit of poker playing in the basement, and food on the second floor. In the same area was the equally famous notorious Coney Island, presided over by one Tom Powers, who was widely known.
And there was the Hotel Zieger Bar where good alcoholic beverages could be found, as well as good food and all presided over by one Charles Zeiger... we could go on naming them and their owners at length. Believe it or not, practically all of the many downtown bars were within an area bounded by Santa Fe, Main, Second, and Kansas streets. We had big ice customers in the hotels, private dubs and the eating houses, but the one we always liked, was the famous old Clubhouse Cafe, because we knew that a good breakfast awaited us there. It was operated by a Chinese group. The clubhouse had its drawbacks though. The Chinese insisted that you hoist 200-pound chunks into the upper deck of the big walk-in box ... they wouldn't take 100-pound pieces because they felt they would be short-potted. So it was, 200 pounds or nothing ... and up they went regard1ess, because they always took 1,200 pounds every morning. The Moose Club on the second floor of 211 Texas street was a straight shot that called for the best in physique and patience, at least 1,000 pounds every day up those 40 steps. You're wondering now, why these places used so much ice. Well, please don't forget that they operated on a 24-hour basis, and there were no mechanical ice makers.
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