Ice House

Alda Florence (“Tiny”) Gormley Sturdivant's father James C. Gormley was the city clerk and railroad depot agent who about 1914 built the "ice house" -- a concrete structure beside the Roundhouse Replica on Front Street. At that time, the original Roundhouse still stood over the city’s cistern on Main Street and the railroad depot was in the location of the Roundhouse Replica. Actually, James built the concrete structure to sell vegetables and other produce to train passengers through the large window on its south side. However, soon the structure was used to store ice brought to town by the railroad to sell to Madison residents in the summer. In winter the "ice house" was used to store coal delivered by the railroad for sale to area residents. It must have been challenging to keep the coal dust off the ice as the seasons changed. In more recent years, the city has stored chemicals and old paper records plus various mechanical components in the structure, so it is kept locked and now is the residence of many spiders.