An original lowrider

[George Smolinski]

[auburnseeker]

I think that's been photo shopped by the white spot in the wheel well,  told the original ride height was higher. No way those big wheelsl could turn to make a corner, unless it had some type of early air ride for loading and unloading. Still neat looking truck regardless. 

[West Peterson]

I agree with ^

[1937hd45]

[Dandy Dave]

The base truck is a 1937 White. Agree the photo has been shopped. Dandy Dave!

[1937hd45]

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM89047

Edited March 19, 2022 by 1937hd45 (see edit history)

[SC38dls]

Maybe they just overloaded it with ice and instead of taking it all out they are waiting for it to melt. 
dave s 

[nickelroadster]

I wonder how many people would order both ice and coal?

[1937hd45]

36 minutes ago, nickelroadster said:

I wonder how many people would order both ice and coal?

Everyone before the electric refrigerator was common appliance. 

[nickelroadster]

This is true but you wouldn't want to mix those things at all.  Coal is very dusty and it seems as if it would get into the ice,  Who would want ice with a lot of coal dust in it.

[1937hd45]

43 minutes ago, nickelroadster said:

This is true but you wouldn't want to mix those things at all.  Coal is very dusty and it seems as if it would get into the ice,  Who would want ice with a lot of coal dust in it.

I bet they had TWO trucks, what do you think? 

Edited March 20, 2022 by 1937hd45 (see edit history)

[auburnseeker]

Wasn't there a post on here a while back or maybe facebook that had a pool filling company and a septic pumping service advertised together? 

[intimeold]

Ice is heavy;!

 

What puzzles me is that the front end is really low to the ground also.  But maybe the loader of that ice, if it was ice; was able to place a lot of the load towards the font of that van.  Maybe! 

[Ozstatman]

Year round business model? Ice for the warmer months, coal for the colder months.

[Marty Roth]

3 hours ago, nickelroadster said:

I wonder how many people would order both ice and coal?

Back in the early 1940s at my grandparents' apartment in the East New York section of Brooklyn, NY, 

I remember the Ice Man bringing blocks of ice for the Ice Box (non-electric Fridge). It had a with a drip pan underneath.

There was an alley alongside the building, and coal was delivered on a regular basis. The entire truck bed elevated on a set of multiple scissor joints, and then tilted to drop coal via a long angled and turning chute into a basement access - and then into a large coal bin to feed the 8-apartment house.

 

Of course the ice and the coal came on very different trucks, and in this instance, not from the same company.

 

When we moved back to Linden, NJ after dad returned from the South Pacific after WWII and his time with the Seabees, we moved back to Linden, NJ, bought a Kelvinator electric refrigerator, but still had coal delivered to our 2-family house. The tenants had their own coal bin and chute with automatic feed to their furnace. We still had to stoke ours.

[wayne sheldon]

It was fairly common practice around the country for a single company to market coal during the winter months, and ice during the summer time. It worked well for them to use some of the same trucks with simple alterations (and cleaning!). It kept trucks and workers busy most of the year. Between the hot and cold seasons, they had maintenance and other work to transition from one to the other. Ice generally was harvested during the winter months while some of the trucks and workers transported coal to customers. Handling ice during the summer was hard work, and required moving insulation (often hay/straw) to minimize melting. The seasons that ice required the most labor, were when coal was used only a little. Both businesses were labor intensive.

 

When my dad was in high school, the local coal merchant would arrange for the railroad to deliver a carload of coal on Friday. After school , my dad who was already six foot four and nearly two hundred pounds of mostly muscle, would begin shoveling the carload out by hand! Usually, he would finish up Saturday, but sometimes need to do the last bit of it on Sunday so that the railroad could pick up their coal-car on Monday. He made really good money for a kid with a part-time job!

[1937hd45]

Marty, Wayne, Thank you for the history lesson, hard to believe so many people have no knowledge of common household utilities that were still in use in the late 1940's. I got to shovel coal into a furnace in the early 1950's, but ice was always in cubes in a tray. 

Edited March 20, 2022 by 1937hd45 (see edit history)

[Ed Luddy]

I remember our house had "The Iron Fireman" coal furnace that fed the coal via a large screw type device. 

[Dandy Dave]

Our house had an Iron Fireman also. I had saved the tag off of it when it was destined for the scrap heap. Dandy Dave!

[58L-Y8]

The major changes in household management wrought by the advent of widespread. including rural, electrification and the switch to natural gas and fuel oil for home heating sources from coal are two of the major 20th Century societal changes that underpinned progress of the country, however little recognized.

[Walt G]

Does anyone here know what a large truck full of coal smells like! I recall it as a young kid as my grandparents still had a coal fired furnace  - but about 40 years ago when attending a car show/rally in England  fellow had a restored pre war coal truck there filled with coal and from about 200 yards away you could smell a distinct order from the coal - not offensive ( it wasn't a horse hauling van!) just so different. I thought it added to the whole experience . Like when you ear a car or truck of the pre war era sound its musical horn, adds another dimension to the whole experience.

[8E45E]

I do recognize the scent coal gives off. 

 

Many years ago, when I was in school, the city had a severe headlice outbreak, and many students had some headlice including myself and my sister.  At the time coal oil was the only substance that killed headlice, and my mom used it on us to get rid of them.  I recall that distinctive scent to this day.

 

Craig

[SC38dls]

Our house had a Three Sons coal feeder for the furnace, my two older brothers and myself. You can guess who got to do the early morning job when it was coldest. 
dave s 

[wayne sheldon]

I do remember the smell of coal! My dad was raised throughout the depression years and the World War two by his grandparents. His mother had become very sick, and his father couldn't care for a baby and earn a living, so grandparents and a couple uncles and aunts took him in. His grandfather passed away when he was nearly grown, but his grandmother lived many more years. When I was growing up, we would go and visit his grandmother almost every year. She insisted on a coal stove for most of her life, and still at 95 years living in a small house behind one of the great uncle's homes. Most mornings there was pancakes, or scrambled eggs, cooked on a coal stove!

[CHuDWah]

Note the truck pix show the delivery guy with his backpack carrier for the ice block - also appears to be the rear of a late-30s MoPar coupe in the first pic.  My Dad, who grew up before home refrigeration, still referred to his refrigerator as the "ice box."  The wife and I had one, although not for refrigeration - at one time, they were fashionable for liquor cabinets.  Ours had a quarter-sawn oak cabinet - solid and thick, not plywood.  That sucker was heavy!  The inside was lined with galvanized steel and divided vertically into a compartment with racks on one side and two horizontal compartments on the other.  The upper one held the ice (50-pound block IIRC) and, since cold air falls, the lower was sort of a freezer.  The ice compartment had a drain pipe leading to a catch pan under the unit - there was a hinged oak flap that allowed the pan to be removed for emptying.

 

We also had a circa-1925 house that still had the coal hatch in the side just below the basement ceiling.  It was 2 - 3 feet square and had a cast iron door with an inside latch.  I guess you left it unlocked on coal delivery day.  The house I grew up in was about the same vintage and had an old coal octopus furnace but it had been converted to natural gas.  IIRC, the coal hatch had been replaced with a window.

[Studeous]

Oh yes, the ice man cometh, with his leather apron and back cape, his ice pick in a speed holster, a grin and a flash of the pick and a chunk or two for the kiddos on the sidewalk.  On those hot hot summer days on Lancaster road in Dallas. Thanks for the memory.

[Jim Bollman]

I seem to remember the first house my parents rented had a coal furnace, I remember the coal door and coal storage room. Don't really remember the furnace so maybe it had been covered to oil. The next house they bought and the coal furnace had been converted to oil. We used the old coal storage room to store firewood for the fireplace. The coal room also had  two 275gal oil tanks. 

 

The one flaw in hauling ice in the Summer and coal in the Winter is if I'm not mistaken didn't you still need ice in the Winter if your icebox was inside the house? being a BabyBoomer I have no remembrance of iceboxes actually in use, I assume they didn't move them outside in the Winter and you would still have the cross over Spring/Fall times to worry about if you did. My bet is two trucks.

[wayne sheldon]

Some ice was of course delivered during winter months, and more so in some regions of the country than in others. Also, coal was delivered during the summer, especially for cooking stoves. However the off season deliveries were a fraction of what was used and needed during the "season". Many business, from bakeries to blacksmith shops, foundries, glass and pottery, needed ovens all year-round. Homeowners were somewhat split between those that preferred wood or coal for their stoves. Stoves were even offered that could burn either one, but generally, wood and coal stoves were built differently. A good friend of mine loves cooking on his original wood stove!

 

Many Northern states made fortunes cutting and shipping ice during the winter months. Coal is mined where coal is found. I suspect the big railroads made more millions out of shipping those two commodities than they did on almost any other single thing.

I remember in the North end of San Jose California when I was very young, the huge building that stood there. It hadn't been used for anything but a warehouse for many years even then. But the signage on the building was still there proclaiming it as an "Ice House" and "cold storage". I remember being fascinated by it, and asking questions, usually getting short answers. I also remember the railroad tracks right alongside the building.

 

Harry Jewett, later president of Paige Detroit and manufacturer of Paige and Jewett automobiles made his first millions as a coal broker. As an engineer, he figured out some ways to improve the loading and transportation of coal utilizing the railroads. He like many of the wealthy at that time had invested in the fledgling automobile industry, specifically Paige on the advice of a wealthy friend. When he realized that the company was on its way to failure due to mismanagement, he took over the company to protect his investment, and in turn made another few million.

 

I love history! So many things intertwine.

[1937hd45]

If memory is correct the original Harrah Automobile Collection was housed in what had been a HUGE ice house. 

[Steve Moskowitz]

All these stories about coal have given me PTSD.  We had a coal furnace for many years when I was a child.  They would pour the coal down a chute from a window in our basement which landed in a bin.  Our basement always gave me the creeps as it was dark and the back side was a rock ledge. Was NOT a place I wanted to play in. I can picture almost everything about it including the door to the furnace.  Did a little bit of the shoveling as I got older.

[edinmass]

 

My old shop....a 1922 Moon car dealership had a coal shoot and furnace from 1922 till the 50's. The boiler was switched over to oil in the 50's..........but the room was still dirty in the 70's from coal dust. They had a very small room with a bath for the fireman to sleep during the winter months to keep it operating..........we still use the bathroom today with it's 1922 fixtures. About ten years ago we removed the coal shoot and expanded the parking lot, as well as cleaned up the cellar and removed the 1922 furnace. The small and deep cellar is still dank and scary after all these years........perfect place to hide a body.........

[TAKerry]

Another off topic but I will contribute, I saw a coal delivery the other day going into an Amish house. And yes he had a trailer on a scissor lift. Kind of typical for most coal trucks these days.  Most dump trucks have a small door in the middle of the tailgate, this is for a coal chute. I would highly doubt that coal and ice would be transported in the same truck. Coal is dumped. My brother built his first house around 1986. He put in a coal stove, had the bin in his basement and would get a couple of deliveries a year through the window. It was a lot of work. Last house he had that was heated with coal.

[Restorer32]

I wandered around India for 4 months in 1970. At that time ALL Indian trains except one were pulled by coal fired steam locos, some even hand stoked.  Spent maybe 100 hours riding behind those old steamers and love the smell of burning coal to this day.