There are no pictures to use as a basis for this model. However, Beau Hill, the sponsor of this model actually lived in the building that had previously been his great grandfather Truitt’s ice house. Double concrete block walls were filled with sawdust for insulation. The ice house was completed in 1901. It made what was called “artificial” ice. Until then Truitt had imported “natural” glacial ice from Canada, delivered to Rehoboth’s Laurel Street spur by railcar. It required ammonia and steam to make ice, which meant the plant had a coal boiler, coal yard, and a 60’ stack to expel the smoke.
Eight years later Truitt constructed a power plant surrounding the ice house. After initially losing out to acetylene gas for the city streetlight contract, Truitt soon convinced the commissioners to use electric, erecting the City’s electrical poles and building the grid during the 1910s.
