No efforts were made previous to 1869 to harvest ice for use in the Institution. However, in that year, records show that an ice house was erected north of the barn driveway near Murdock Road at a cost of $299. In those days the Board cut ice at Nankin Mills and stored 500 tons (the capacity of the ice house). In 1892 another icehouse was built on the site of the first barn, where the bakery now stands, at a cost of $500. This building was used for storing ice for the use of the Asylum, allowing the County House the entire use of the first ice house. The Asylum ice house was destroyed by fire in 1904; but, fortunately, the Superintendents had erected another building for Asylum use on the site a little south of the two Hospital buildings about where the road runs north between “L” and “M” Buildings. In 1906 the Board erected, east of the barn, another ice house for the use of the County House which was like the one built for the Asylum.

The combined capacity of the three houses was 1,500 tons; and the supply was from the artificial lake, where ice had been cut since the winter of 1893 and 1894. In 1915 the Superintendents erected an ice house at the west end of the lake, which had a capacity of 1,400 tons of ice. On the front of the building and extending into the lake was a chute for hoisting the ice blocks into the house. A bypass on the chute afforded a means of shunning the blocks to a platform for loading wagons. The chute was operated by an electric motor. After the erection of the new ice house, the old ones were used for storing various things and were finally torn down in 1921; the ice house at the lake was torn down in 1937.

[ This information presented in whole from “A History of the Wayne County Infirmary, Psychiatric, and General Hospital Complex at Eloise, Michigan” by Alvin C. Clark; page 115. ]