Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1909 — COONEY IS AT IT; HARVESTING ICE CROP. [ARTICLE]

COONEY IS AT IT; HARVESTING ICE CROP.

Ten Men Went to Work This Morning and Force of Forty Will Begin Work Saturday. The smile that won’t come off is athwart the face of Conrad Kellner, ice king, and thereby hangs a job for a lot of workers. When Cooney got out of bed this Friday morning and stuck his nose out of, the door and got a whiff of zero weather a satisfied smile supplanted the worried look on his face and before he could get on his boots and shake down the base burner the femHe had frozen there and nothing will remove it short of a change in the temperature that will spoil his harvest of his ice crop. An inspection of his ice pond showed that the ice was about 7 inches thick and the plows were soon at work and ten or a dozen men began the work of laying up the supply that will be sold in Rensselaer next summer. The weather man proclaims continued cold weather and a few days will enable Cooney to fill his ice houses. The public is interested in his success for several reasons. In the first place they like Cooney and admire his pluck in having invested so heavily in the preparation for his business. They also know that the gathering of ice here saves a lot of money to the consumers and that it keeps a lot of money in the community that otherwise would be sent away for manufactured ice. The ice from Cooney’s pond will be absolutely pure. He drained his pond dry late in the fall and then filled it with water pumped from his drilled wells. It is to be hoped that he will get a big supply of the congealed aqua or H2O. '