The staff of the Mercer County Historical Society has found several interesting and unusual items in our collection while inventorying (accessioning) items in the basement of the museum. See if you can guess what these items are before reading further. Do you know what these are?

The staff had fun trying to guess what the first item might have been used for. Guesses ranged from torture devise to barbecue hot dog cooker with a bun holder! Actually, this item is a three-prong ice pick with a scoop to pick up ice chips. This item would have been used in the era before refrigerators and freezers. Blocks of ice would’ve been cut from Grand Lake during winter and were then delivered to homes. The blocks were placed in the upper compartment of an ice box to preserve perishable food. This little ice pick would have been quite handy when trying to chill drinks!

The staff guessed (partially correctly) that the second item was an ice tray. However, remember that this was the era before freezers. With this item, the homemaker would put hot water in the chamber (see screw on cap in photo). Then, this item would’ve been placed upside down atop a block of ice. The heat from the water would transfer to the cube section and the whole unit would melt down into the ice block, forming perfect 1 1/2" ice cubes certain to impress any guest.

Today, we would think of these items as simplistic, crude and maybe silly. But it is interesting to see how folks from our past developed solutions to everyday problems with the technology they had.

See these and many more interesting items as the Society attempts the difficult task to make more of these items assessable for display at our museum.