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Weird World of Deborama #1— Ice Houses
The things I find on the internet! I found this while researching my upcoming Southside Pride article. This is from Wikipedia.
Southern Ice Houses — In Texas, former ice houses are a cultural tradition. Ice merchants diversified to sell groceries and cold beer, serving as early convenience stores and local gathering places. The widespread 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores in the U.S., first known as Tote’m Stores, developed from ice houses operated by the Southland ice manufacturing company in Dallas and San Antonio in the 1930s. Many Texas ice houses have since converted into open-air bars. In central Texas, southeast Texas (especially the Houston area), and the Texas Hill Country, the word “icehouse” has become a colloquialism for an establishment that derives the majority of its income from the sale of cold beer.
Southland was not the only company in the Southern U.S. to develop a convenience-store corporation from an ice business. Munford, Incorporated, of Atlanta began in the early 20th century by vending both ice and coal from mule-drawn wagons, as the Atlantic Ice and Coal Company. By the 1970s, Munford, Inc. was operating a large chain of convenience stores with the name Majik Market (the company was sold in 1988 and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1990.)
