General information | |
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Architectural style | Romanesque Revival architecture |
Address | 100 S. 2nd St. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US |
Coordinates | 43°01′55″N87°54′44″W / 43.03194°N 87.91222°W |
Completed | 1892 |
Cost | $100,000 (equivalent to $3,400,000in 2023) |
Owner |
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Technical details | |
Material | Brick |
Floor count | 5 stories |
Floor area | 71,500 sq ft (6,640 m2) |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) |
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Architecture firm | Crane and Barkhausen |
Milwaukee Cold Storage Co. Building was built in 1892 and it was once the location for the Milwaukee Cold Storage Company. At the time of construction it was billed as the largest cold storage house in Wisconsin. It is an historic building constructed in the style of Romanesque Revival architecture and it is located in the Walker's Point Historic District of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
To retain the cold air, the five-story building has walls which are two feet thick and there are not many windows. The building was originally cooled with ice that was taken from the nearby river. After 1910 the building was cooled with a mechanical refrigeration system.
In 2019 the building was sold to a Milwaukee developer. The developer plans to restore the building for new uses. The developer has been involved with converting buildings in Milwaukee for use as apartments
The Milwaukee Cold Storage Co. Building was constructed in 1892 as a place to store and distribute "butter, cheese, eggs, fruit, game, poultry" and other items. The building was commissioned by E. R. Godfrey, W. H. Stevens, E. J. Lindsay and William Plankinton. [1] The building is five stories tall and had an available 600,000 cubic feet (17,000 m3) of storage. The building also has a basement. The building was constructed for $100,000 (equivalent to $3,400,000in 2023 [2] ) and could store 500 train-car loads [A 1] of perishable items at temperatures between 10 and 60 °F (−12 and 16 °C). [4] In 1893 it was called the "largest cold storage house in the State of Wisconsin." [1] [4] The building is situated at the junction of the Menomonee River and Milwaukee River at 100 S. 2nd St. [5]
The Milwaukee architects Charles D. Crane and Carl C. Barkhausen were selected to build the structure. The building is in the style of Romanesque Revival architecture [6] and it has 2 ft (0.61 m) walls made of Cream City brick. The building has few windows to minimize the loss of cold air. [1] It is considered to be a historic building and it is located in the Walker's Point Historic District of Milwaukee. [5]
The president of the operation was an inventor named Avelyn I. Dexter. He invented the "Dexter System of Cold Storage" which pushed air over ice to create a refrigeration system. From 1892 to 1910 ice was taken from the Menomonee River to cool the building, but in 1910 the building was cooled with a new refrigeration system which used brine tanks, condensers and ammonia. [1]
On July 30, 1955, there was an ammonia leak on the fifth floor of the building. The Milwaukee Cold Storage Company lost a large quantity of nuts and perishable foods which were stored on the fifth floor as a result of the ammonia fumes. The Milwaukee Cold Storage Company sued the manufacturer of the refrigeration system, the York Corporation. A jury decided that the York Corporation was not at fault for the destruction of the stored items. [7]
The Wisconsin Historical Society surveyed the property in 1984. They have added it to their list in the Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory. [6] The building had been owned by Brian Jost until 2019. [5] In 2019 the building was sold to J. Jeffers & Co. for US$300,000: it was described as a 71,500 sq ft (6,640 m2) warehouse. [8] The Milwaukee developer said that they plan to restore the building for new uses. J. Jeffers has ben converting buildings in Milwaukee for use as apartments. [5]
Refrigeration is any of various types of cooling of a space, substance, or system to lower and/or maintain its temperature below the ambient one. Refrigeration is an artificial, or human-made, cooling method.
The following is a timeline of low-temperature technology and cryogenic technology. It also lists important milestones in thermometry, thermodynamics, statistical physics and calorimetry, that were crucial in development of low temperature systems.
An ice house, or icehouse, is a building used to store ice throughout the year, commonly used prior to the invention of the refrigerator. Some were underground chambers, usually man-made, close to natural sources of winter ice such as freshwater lakes, but many were buildings with various types of insulation.
A refrigerator, colloquially fridge, is a commercial and home appliance consisting of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from its inside to its external environment so that its inside is cooled to a temperature below the room temperature. Refrigeration is an essential food storage technique around the world. The low temperature lowers the reproduction rate of bacteria, so the refrigerator reduces the rate of spoilage. A refrigerator maintains a temperature a few degrees above the freezing point of water. The optimal temperature range for perishable food storage is 3 to 5 °C. A freezer is a specialized refrigerator, or portion of a refrigerator, that maintains its contents’ temperature below the freezing point of water. The refrigerator replaced the icebox, which had been a common household appliance for almost a century and a half. The United States Food and Drug Administration recommends that the refrigerator be kept at or below 4 °C (40 °F) and that the freezer be regulated at −18 °C (0 °F).
Cold chain is a set of rules and procedures that ensure the systematic coordination of activities for ensuring temperature-control of goods while in storage and transit. The objective of a cold chain is to preserve the integrity and quality of goods such as pharmaceutical products or perishable good from production to consumption. Cold chain management earned its name as a "chain" because it involves linking a set of storage locations and special transport equipment, required for ensuring that temperature conditions for goods are met, while they are in storage or in transit from production to consumption, akin to the interconnected links of a physical chain.
A yakhchāl is an ancient type of ice house, which also made ice. They are primarily found in the Dasht-e Lut and Dasht-e-Kavir deserts, whose climates range from cold (BWk) to hot (BWh) desert regions.
An icebox is a compact non-mechanical refrigerator which was a common early-twentieth-century kitchen appliance before the development of safely powered refrigeration devices. Before the development of electric refrigerators, iceboxes were referred to by the public as "refrigerators". Only after the invention of the modern electric refrigerator did early non-electric refrigerators become known as iceboxes. The terms ice box and refrigerator were used interchangeably in advertising as long ago as 1848.
An icemaker, ice generator, or ice machine may refer to either a consumer device for making ice, found inside a home freezer; a stand-alone appliance for making ice, or an industrial machine for making ice on a large scale. The term "ice machine" usually refers to the stand-alone appliance.
Icyball is a name given to two early refrigerators, one made by Australian Sir Edward Hallstrom in 1923, and the other design patented by David Forbes Keith of Toronto, and manufactured by American Powel Crosley Jr., who bought the rights to the device. Both devices are unusual in design in that they did not require the use of electricity for cooling. They can run for a day on a cup of kerosene, allowing rural users lacking electricity the benefits of refrigeration.
The Historic Third Ward is a historic warehouse district located in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This Milwaukee neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the Third Ward is home to over 450 businesses and maintains a strong position within the retail and professional service community in Milwaukee as a showcase of a mixed-use district. The neighborhood's renaissance is anchored by many specialty shops, restaurants, art galleries and theatre groups, creative businesses and condos. It is home to the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD), and the Broadway Theatre Center. The Ward is adjacent to the Henry Maier Festival Park, home to Summerfest. The neighborhood is bounded by the Milwaukee River to the west and south, E. Clybourn Street to the north, and Lake Michigan to the east.
Vapour-compression refrigeration or vapor-compression refrigeration system (VCRS), in which the refrigerant undergoes phase changes, is one of the many refrigeration cycles and is the most widely used method for air conditioning of buildings and automobiles. It is also used in domestic and commercial refrigerators, large-scale warehouses for chilled or frozen storage of foods and meats, refrigerated trucks and railroad cars, and a host of other commercial and industrial services. Oil refineries, petrochemical and chemical processing plants, and natural gas processing plants are among the many types of industrial plants that often utilize large vapor-compression refrigeration systems. Cascade refrigeration systems may also be implemented using two compressors.
An absorption heat pump (AHP) is a heat pump driven by thermal energy such as combustion of natural gas, steam solar-heated water, air or geothermal-heated water differently from compression heat pumps that are driven by mechanical energy. AHPs are more complex and require larger units compared to compression heat pumps. In particular, the lower electricity demand of such heat pumps is related to the liquid pumping only. Their applications are restricted to those cases when electricity is extremely expensive or a large amount of unutilized heat at suitable temperatures is available and when the cooling or heating output has a greater value than heat input consumed. Absorption refrigerators also work on the same principle, but are not reversible and cannot serve as a heat source.
The neighborhoods of Milwaukee include a number of areas in southeastern Wisconsin within the state's largest city at nearly 600,000 residents.
Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C (US) or air con (UK), is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior temperature and in some cases also strictly controlling the humidity of internal air. Air conditioning can be achieved using a mechanical 'air conditioner' or by other methods, including passive cooling and ventilative cooling. Air conditioning is a member of a family of systems and techniques that provide heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC). Heat pumps are similar in many ways to air conditioners, but use a reversing valve to allow them both to heat and to cool an enclosed space.
A solar-powered refrigerator is a refrigerator which runs on energy directly provided by sun, and may include photovoltaic or solar thermal energy.
Mary Engle Pennington was an American bacteriological chemist, food scientist and refrigeration engineer. She was a pioneer in the preservation, handling, storage and transportation of perishable foods and the first female lab chief at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. She was awarded 5 patents, received the Notable Service Medal from President Herbert Hoover and the Garvin-Olin Medal from the American Chemical Society. She is an inductee of the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, the National Women's Hall of Fame and the ASHRAE Hall of Fame.
Ice storage air conditioning is the process of using ice for thermal energy storage. The process can reduce energy used for cooling during times of peak electrical demand. Alternative power sources such as solar can also use the technology to store energy for later use. This is practical because of water's large heat of fusion: one metric ton of water can store 334 megajoules (MJ) of energy, equivalent to 93 kWh.
The International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR), is an independent intergovernmental science and technology-based organization which promotes knowledge of refrigeration and associated technologies and applications on a global scale that improve quality of life in a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable manner, including:
Pfister & Vogel (P&V) was an American tannery business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Walker's Point Historic District is a mixed working-class neighborhood of homes, stores, churches and factories in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with surviving buildings as old as 1849, including remnants of the Philip Best Brewery and the Pfister and Vogel Tannery. In 1978 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The NRHP nomination points out that Walker's Point was "the only part of Milwaukee's three original Settlements to reach the last quarter of the Twentieth Century with its Nineteenth and early-Twentieth Century fabric still largely intact," and ventures that "For something similar, one would have to travel to Cleveland or St. Louis if, indeed, so cohesive and broad a grouping of...structures still exists even in those cities."