Crystal Ice House

History

Constructed in 1940, the Crystal Ice Company building stands as a rare surviving example of vernacular “roadside commercial” architecture in Pensacola, located on Davis Highway north of downtown. Historically, the structure marks both the rise of automobile culture in 1930s America and the enduring reliance on manufactured ice for domestic cooling throughout the region. It also serves as a lasting legacy to Guy M. Spearman, who founded both the company and the Spearman Brewing Company. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 29, 1983.

Guy Spearman and the Crystal Ice Co.

Born in Tallapoosa, Georgia, in 1896, Guy M. Spearman attended high school in Birmingham, Alabama, and graduated from the Alabama Polytechnic Institute in Auburn. After early stints in drafting and selling perfume, he went on to operate an ice and cold storage plant in Opp, Alabama. In the late 1920s, he moved to Pensacola, where he bought the B and B Ice Company, “got the old plant, two Model A trucks, one chain-drive Federal truck and some faithful employees.” In 1929, the old ice plant on Government Street was rebuilt and reorganized as the Crystal Ice Company.

While ice manufacturing had anchored West Florida’s economy since the late 1860s, originally driven by Pensacola’s commercial snapper fishing industry, the household icebox sustained high demand well into the twentieth century. Electric refrigerators emerged during the 1920s, but high costs kept them out of most households. According to Alan Gantzhorn, recognizing that middle and lower-income families still depended on iceboxes through the 1930s and 1940s, Spearman targeted these communities directly, opening three distribution stations in predominantly Black working-class neighborhoods.

Drivers stopped at homes displaying a diamond-shaped card in the window. The card’s position indicated how much ice was needed, saving drivers from having to knock and ask. A quick glance was all it took: the driver would hop off the truck, chip the block to size, grab it with ice tongs, and heft it over his shoulder. He’d then carry it up the back porch steps and deposit the cold square straight into the wooden icebox.

Spearman Brewing Company

At the end of Prohibition in 1933, Spearman served as a temporary distributor for Budweiser and Shlitz, as his ice plant was one of the few that could refrigerate draft beer. After making several trips to Cadsa Blanca Brewery in Mexico, he became interested in starting his old brewery, which became known as the Spearman Brewing Company, located adjacent to the Crystal Ice plant on Government Street. The company touted its “99.999 percent pure water” as ideal for brewing, adopting “The Pure Water Does It” as its slogan for decades, despite the factory’s proximity to the American Creosote Works Superfund site.

By May 1935, the brewery was up and running with the first products hitting store shelves in Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. At its peak, the brewery produced up to 500,000 barrels annually, much of it consumed by U.S. service members. Spearman sold the business in 1960 to Louis Hertzberg and his sons, who marketed the local brew under various labels. Following the end of production in 1964, the warehouse briefly served as a distribution point for New Jersey’s Metropolis Brewery. After standing idle through more than a decade of failed redevelopment attempts, the building’s remaining steel frame was finally demolished in 1987.

The Crystal Ice House

It wasn’t 1940 that the smaller substations were established. According to his son, the substations were modeled after an ice cream parlor at the corner of G Street and Barrancas Avenue. However, it is just as likely the architecture was inspired by the Polar Bear Ice Cream Shop in Birmingham, Alabama, where Spearman’s brother served as vice president of U.S. Steel. As with the ice cream parlor, the Crystal Ice stations in Pensacola were adorned with concrete polar bears and seals.

Designed for efficiency and striking visual impact, the dealership catered explicitly to drive-through motorists. Customers could pull up alongside the building, reference hand signals carved directly into the stucco wall to indicate their order, and receive service without leaving their cars. After World War II, the stations were equipped with automatic ice vending machines. After these machines became commonplace and could be found at most service stations and grocery stores, Spearman closed the stations.

Legacy

The Crystal Ice Company operated until 1970. Following Spearman’s death, the business was acquired by the Connohio Corporation, leading to the closure of its distribution sites. Spearman’s son continued to own the Crystal Ice House on Davis Highway, renting out the space to a nearby grocer for storage.

The old ice plant on Government Street was acquired by George Yarbrough, whose father owned another long-standing Pensacola ice company, Peoples Ice Company. After acquiring the old ice plant, Yarbrough organized the Peoples Crystal Ice Company in 1971, continuing the legacy left by both his father and Guy Spearman. The company operated until 1997. Today, the Crystal Ice House on Davis Highway remains the sole survivor of the three original substations, as the other two structures have since been demolished. Although preserved, the building remains unused. As for the old Crystal Ice Company plant on Government Street, it has sat vacant since Peoples Ice Company dissolved.

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