When American Ice was sold in Madras

Living near the beautiful stretches of the Marina beach for almost my entire life, there have been many stories which I have heard as folklore and history in locations in and around the Marina beach and this story was one which intrigued me the most.

There is a building on the stretches of  Marina beach which once upon a time housed ice which was transported all the way from New England USA and sold in India. Similar ice houses were built in Calcutta as well.

This place is currently called the Vivekananda Illam, but for the old timers living around the stretches of Marina beach it has another name ” The Ice House”.

The story of Ice in Chennai was quite an interesting one. It’s origins lay in Boston, Mass, USA where in 1783 the Ice King Fredrick Tudor was born. Whilst in Cuba with his brother he was unable to procure ice in the tropical heat. But in his home state of New England Ice was aplenty Being a typical capitalist entrepreneur he viewed this as a function of supply and demand and delved into researching how he can transport ice without it melting. Finally, he found that a dusting of sawdust over the ice prevented the melting of ice and thus a new global business was born.

Whilst expanding globally he built three ice houses in India in Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata. Out of the three, only the ice house in Chennai still stands today. The building was built in 1842 and was operational till 1880 when the introduction of the steam based ice making process struck the death knell for this business.

Interestingly it was India and especially Calcutta which was one of the most profitable of the destinations of the Tudor Ice Inc. Calcutta made over 220,000 USD in profits over its lifetime of operation.

So the next time you are in Marina beach enjoying an ice cream from one of the many ice cream wagons there spare a thought to Fredrick Tudor and how he brought ice to Madras.