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["WF Smith" <mogrits AT gmail.com>]

I've been going through six generations of minutiae and other things as part
of taking on the homeplace I mentioned before. Some of the items are posted
at www.palmettopathos.com and there are hundreds more to come.

Tonight I found a receipt for ice, delivered on account in July of 1889. It
cost a penny a pound. July 20th was a big day, where they took 40 lbs. It
was a Saturday so perhaps a dinner was planned for that night or the next
day. They bought 178 lbs for the month.

Using an inflation calculator (http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi) I
discover that the ten pound bag of ice you get at the convenience store for
approximately 2 bucks is only slightly beating inflation, which pegs it at
2.28. Of course, if you had it delivered to your home you would have a 10
dollar per delivery fuel surcharge added.

The water/well/pump website I posted earlier today mentioned a pre-electric,
hand-cranked ice maker and I suspect the 1889 ice was made by steam driven
compressors and ammonia gas.

For some reason I expected 1889 ice to be much more expensive than today's
ice.

Warren