Probably the best forum I could find for this subject..

[ironglow]

  Just a little more history for your perusal ...Reintroducing an old industry. 
  There is a lake near my home that had pure waters, fed from springs in it's bottom.
  It was for many years a major supplier of ice for the old oak iceboxes..  Ice was shipped from the lake to much of the northeast...and by rail, packed in sawdust, to further points.

  No homes or cottages were allowed on the lake, so as to keep the waters pristine for ice.  As one can see, horses were used to cut the ice with cutters that looked like saws with huge teeth.  I don't know how they handled it when horses did what horses will do.  Catch bags maybe?

     Nothing remains of the huge, old ice storage buildings, though the railroad still runs very near the northeast corner.

[ironglow]

Many locals were employed there, but of course, the ice business went out with the ice boxes.
  Now and then, I see remnants of some of the ice harvesting tools..hung up in neighbors barns.

   Also shown, rail cars lined up to transport ice to who-knows-where?

[VA Rifleman]

Ice houses? Here’s a minor story.

Grandfathers ranch in BlackHawk SD had abandoned gypsum mine on the property. Grandpa worked to collapse it using heavy equipment to the big worry of Grandma while we kids liked to explore it. Sherrif turned up every now and then if a local kid went missing.

Anyway, what was unique, the old mine held ice underground well into the summer. Grandpa and locals would cut ice blocks for their ice boxes.

The mine area was pasture back in the day. Everyone knew about the mine but somehow, years later, developers put a subdivision on the property.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/south-dakota/articles/2021-06-20/study-abandoned-gypsum-mine-could-extend-below-interstate

There’s a old car down in the mine. Explorers just “found” it again. Back in the day, that area was accessed via a deep trench that exposed a couple entrances in the trench wall.

Have news for the county. Some of the mine is deeper in the property, running back towards another highway.

Article mentions Interstate I90. Have memories of going right down the middle of I90 on a horse drawn sleigh.

[ironglow]

Probably many undiscovered caves yet throughout the country..  I used to work with a fellow who claimed that some of his kin discovered the Wind cave of South Dakota..back in the 1880s.
   
    That old car in the cave you refer to, looks like a '52 or '53 Ford convert.  Were any remains discovered in it..or was it some fellow's way of junking is old car?

[ironglow]

The lake I speak about, looks far different today.  Once the "ice age" was past, Mr Webster, the owner of the venture, divided the lake into large lots, and presented these lots to his loyal employees.

    There was one side street where he awarded lots also..but each included a space for it's owner to have a pier on the lake.

  As a result, the lake looks far different today..perhaps 1/3 are year round residences, rest vacation cottages.
  First photo from my son's drone, shows lake today.  My home is about 1/2 mile off the SW end of the lake (far right corner).

Second photo, enlarged & replaced county nursing home, still on the hill overlooking the lake.  Old stone building to the left of the nursing home is the nursing home from the mid 1800s..now a county museum.

  I have mentioned this lake before, for it's unique position of all lakes in the US.  Since it is spring fed from the bottom, there is no inlet.  However, there are 2 outlets..the north end flows eventually into Lake Erie and onto Lake Ontario, St Lawrence river , Hudson bay to north Atlantic.

  The south outlet, to Allegany river, Ohio river, Mississippi river, and down to the Gulf of Mexico..

   It has been written up in such publications as Ripley's "Believe it or not"..

[VA Rifleman]

“That old car in the cave you refer to, looks like a '52 or '53 Ford convert.  Were any remains discovered in it..or was it some fellow's way of junking is old car?”

Junk car. When I think back, the adults telling us about the many rattlers in the mine were to keep us out.

There’s a picture somewhere of people taking ice from that mine. (1930’s). Stumbled on the 2020 collapse while looking for the pic.

Still can’t believe everyone forgot about the mine being there. Read several stories and that’s the official narrative.

[ironglow]

  Yeah... funny how quickly some folks forget..

[oldandslow]

The lack of lakes and the temperatures here meant our ice house froze everything on site by mechanical means. We went into town on Saturday afternoons to sell eggs and cream and then stock up on groceries and ice for the coming week.  We kept two old quilts in the car and the ice house was the last stop before going home. Wrap up 50 pounds of ice in those old quilts and head for the house hoping for no flats or car trouble. There was no opening the ice box and standing there deciding what you wanted. It was get it and shut the door quickly as possible. We finally got electricity when I was in grade school and that old icebox was the first thing out the door and the kerosene cook stove quickly followed after the juice was turned on. Then we could stay in town and take in a movie after grocery shopping.

[ironglow]

The lack of lakes and the temperatures here meant our ice house froze everything on site by mechanical means. We went into town on Saturday afternoons to sell eggs and cream and then stock up on groceries and ice for the coming week.  We kept two old quilts in the car and the ice house was the last stop before going home. Wrap up 50 pounds of ice in those old quilts and head for the house hoping for no flats or car trouble. There was no opening the ice box and standing there deciding what you wanted. It was get it and shut the door quickly as possible. We finally got electricity when I was in grade school and that old icebox was the first thing out the door and the kerosene cook stove quickly followed after the juice was turned on. Then we could stay in town and take in a movie after grocery shopping.

   Oh yes, those primitive days..folks today would have a tough time.  We are too spoliled..

   Often farms had ice houses of their own..sawdust thick on th efloor..a layer of ice..more sawdust and so on..

[darkgael]

Ice in the early summer…..not far from West Point, NY there is an old revolutionary iron mine. The site is on Bull Mt. in Orange County, NY. It was bored from the top of the hill down at an incline of about 45 deg. The main shaft is about 1000 feet long. At that point the mine branches out into a series of galleries. It is a spooky place. Ice stays in the dark areas well into June. (https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x89c2d611e6cb7973%3A0x5734656f2decf799!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNJBQxW7iYD8jXsz2kJdDlY_uZrLiU9GexjsIhf%3Dw1200-h300-n-k-no!5sbull%20mountain%20mine%20ny%20-%20Google%20Search!15zQ2dJZ0FRPT0&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipNJBQxW7iYD8jXsz2kJdDlY_uZrLiU9GexjsIhf&hl=en)
Ice houses…..not far from my home in PA, on the state game lands atop North Mountain there are the remnants of a substantial ice mining operation. The history of the area has been recorded in the book “The Ghost Towns of North Mountain: Ricketts, Mountain Springs, Stull” by Charles Petrillo (Wyoming Valley Historical and Geological Society). The pictures are very similar to what has been posted. Two lakes, one man made fed by Bowmans Creek, an a huge ice house that sent blocks of ice to NYC, Philadelphia, etc. up to the 1940s (Mountain Springs lasted until 1946). Ice, though, was a secondary operation. The main industry was lumber. The sawdust from the lumbering was used to insulate the ice when temperatures rose.
I remember seeing the Ice Man arrive at my grandparents home in Elmhurst, NY when I was very young. He had a horse drawn wagon, stopped in front of the house, got down, went to the back and flipped up a heavy tarp. He grabbed a block of ice with a set of tongs, walked to the rear of the house, into the pantry, plopped that block into the ice box.
I wonder, now, how long that block lasted.