ASHRAE 125th Anniversary Highlight

Texas Has Been in the Forefront of Artificial Ice Production since 1865 & Progressed to Frozen Beef Transport by Train & Ship

Clipper ships were bringing northern natural pond ice down to Galveston, Texas and shipped as far west as San Antonio, Texas by rail car. Cost was $0.25 Per Pound in the 1850s.

Andrew Muhl, born 1831 in France in Alsace Region. Nominated by Houston Chapter Historian Bruce Flaniken and Inducted as a Pioneer in Refrigeration by ASHRAE in 2014. Andrew was educated in Paris as a locksmith and machinist, served in French Army, and was a contemporary of Carre.

Making and selling Ice and Ice Cream in France prior to his departure to America. Immigrated to America in 1864, hurricane deposited him in New Orleans, he was probably on the ship that was also carrying the Carre Refrigeration machine that Holden worked on in San Antonio. Moved to San Antonio in 1865 to develop his Ether Vapor Refrigeration System. Received Patent for Ether Vapor Compression Ice Machine! Received Patents for Improvement to existing Ice Making Machines!

Received Patent for Existing Cooling Building Improvement, i.e., horizontal cooling coil and forced cold air at ceiling for improved temperature distribution! (more of a Refrigeration Room than A/C System for a Building but Similar Conceptual Design Idea)!

According to an article in the Scientific American August 17, 1872 Andrew Muhl’s ice machine had been operating successfully in San Antonio since 1867. The City of San Antonio Tore down the Dam that was providing rotating shaft power for Brunet & Muhl’s Water Mill Wheel. At this point in time San Antonio, Texas was the Ice Making Capital of the World with two completely different methods of making artificial ice.

Holden Obtained a Carre Aqua-Ammonia Absorption Refrigeration Machine in San Antonio, Texas 1864

April 2, 1868 San Antonio Herald notes: “We had a call from Dr. W. G. Kingsbury, of this city, but who for the last several months has been busily engaged in Victoria, Texas in Superintending the erection of the New Beef Packing Establishment at that place. The doctor appears to be very sanguine that his enterprise will be successful. His Ice machine, steam engine and all fixtures are now on the ground and mechanics are busily engaged in putting up the necessary buildings for the works. The expectation is that he will be able to put up fifty beeves per day, and hence it may be inferred that the establishment is to be on a large and liberal scale. He expects to do most of his packing in the summer and fall and to get into full operation in the next 2 or 3 months. We wish the enterprise the most unbounded success.”

David Jefferson built and operated the first commercial successful ammonia mechanical refrigeration plant at Jefferson, Texas in 1873 while working without knowledge of Linde’s work in Germany.  He outdistanced the German inventor by at least a year.

Dr. Henry Peyton Howard, pioneer built of an ox-cart ice and produce delivery system from Indianola to San Antonio. Howard later successfully delivered Texas beef to New Orleans in the refrigerated steamship AGNES. 

His unsuccessful competitor, Thaddeus S.C. Loew, failed in his meat delivery because of poor ship design; however, he did successfully operate carbon dioxide compressor plants at Dallas, Texas and Jackson, Mississippi in 1870. Professor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe of Civil War fame for using CO2 observation balloons to direct artillery fire was encouraged and financed by the Texas Beef Industry. The development of mechanical refrigeration for the Texas meat industry began in the 1860’s in Dallas, Texas with Thaddeus S. C. Lowe’s carbon dioxide machines, which had been in previous military use to inflate observation balloons during the Civil War. Using dry ice made with carbon dioxide compressors, Lowe designed a refrigerated ship, the William Tabor, in 1868, In competition with Howard Peyton of San Antonio to carry chilled and frozen beef to New Orleans. Howard’s steam ship Agnes was fitted with a cold-storage room twenty-five by fifty feet in size. Because the William Tabor drew too much water to dock in the New Orleans harbor, Howard’s steam ship Agnes was the first to ship beef successfully by refrigerated boat.

Thomas J. Rankin built the first refrigerated meat cars to take Texas beef to New York in 1872.  The shipments were a success but the refrigerated railroad car manufacturing folded and was superseded by Kigan of Indianapolis, Indiana

Between 1871 and 1881 the first mechanically refrigerated abattoir in the United States was planned, established, and successfully operated in Fulton, Texas, for the purpose of chilling and curing beef for shipment to Liverpool, England, and other destinations. Daniel Livingston Holden, his brother Elbridge, and Elbridge Holden's father-in-law, George W. Fulton, took part in the development of this new process of beef packing and shipping. Thomas L. Rankin, of Dallas and Denison, held many patents in the area of refrigeration and had been involved in refrigeration work with Daniel Holden. From 1870 to 1877 Rankin worked on the development of refrigerator and abattoir service for rail shipping of refrigerated beef from Texas and the Great Plains. In late 1873 the Texas and Atlantic Refrigeration Company of Denison made the first successful rail shipment of chilled beef across the country from Texas to New York. The development made by Rankin and his Texas associates spread rapidly to other beef-shipping centers of the nation.

The birthplace of ammonia-compression refrigeration in the United States is Jefferson, Texas, where David Boyle, in 1873, established his first ammonia-compression plant in a lean-to off a lumber mill. Improvements made during the winter of 1873–74 resulted in a high-grade production that attracted national attention. When his machine was destroyed by fire in 1874, Boyle left Texas and went to Illinois. He eventually made an arrangement with Richard T. Crane of Crane and Company of Chicago to manufacture his compression machines. The first two machines produced were bought by the Capitol Ice Company of Austin and by Richard King, who wanted to experiment with meat refrigeration on the King Ranch. In 1878 Charles J. Bell installed the first absorption ice machine at Sherman, Texas.

The Lee Iron Works owned by C.B. Lee, David Weber and Joshua Miller founded of 1865 was one of the manufacturers chosen by Mr. Charles Zilker and his Austin bankers from 1878 to 1928 to build a system of patterned refrigeration plants from Austin to Atlanta, Georgia. The ice plants were designed by Zilker.

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Grandma Rosie’s Wooden Oak Ice Box Northern Ice Box Would hold 7.5 Cubic Feet on the inside

Circa 1890s Originally Varnished Oak Stained Drip Pan Below the Ice Box Would Have to be

Periodically Emptied

Ice Compartment Holds a 25 Pound Bock of Ice.

At that Point in Time Ice sold for $0.15 to $0.20/Pound Delivered

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