Legendary Lake Mills, Wisconsin | Lake Mills Calendar of Events, Business and Tourism Info | Lake Mills Main Street Program

Schedule of events and shopping and dining specials.

There’s lots of fun planned for the forth annual Lake Mills Main Street Program’s Knickerbocker Ice Festival, scheduled for Friday and Saturday, February 4 & 5.  Besides the ice sculptures, Iceberg Open golf tournament (download registration here) and ice fisheree (download registration form) on Rock Lake, games in the park, chili cook-off, and Team Trivia Contest there will be a number of new events including a Hockey Tournament at Sandy Beach, a Knickerbocker King and Queen and a decorated sled parade.

The Hockey Tournament will feature five person teams, a maximum of 20 teams may sign up, and each team will play 3 games. Play will start at 9 am on Saturday and will conclude at approximately 9 that evening. Anyone interested in participating is asked to contact Steven Baumann at 608.575.8384. Sponsoring businesses are Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. and Trek bikes.

The Team Trivia Contest will start at 7:00 and continue until approximately 10:00 in the Community Room at City Hall, 200 Water Street. Teams can have between six and eight players; each player pays $10 to play. $100 and the coveted Brain Trophy will be awarded to the first place team. There will also be prize money for second & third place. Teams will play five rounds with ten general trivia questions per round. All money raised will go to the Lake Mills Main Street Program for Building Improvement Grants. Click here for Rules & Registration.

Tickets for the Knickerbocker Raffle will go on sale on January 20. They will be $5 for one or five for $20, prizes include $500, $250 and $100 shopping sprees in downtown Lake Mills. The winner will be drawn after the games in Commons Park are complete on Saturday afternoon, you do not have to be present to win. Tickets can be purchased at Sweet Lips Art & Gift Gallery, Dutch Designs, TT’s Timeout, Water House Foods and from Main Street Board members and Knickerbocker Committee members.

Ice carvers will invade downtown Lake Mills starting at 9 am on Saturday and will be working on their carvings all day. Any one interested in sponsoring an ice sculpture can call the Main Street office at 920.648.2344, sponsorships are $150.

At 10 am the Knickerbocker King & Queen will be crowned at TT’s Timeout. Also at TT’s you can register for the Iceberg Open Golf Tournament that starts at 10:30.

The Ice Fisheree will begin at 6 am and continue until 3 pm. The Wrap Up Party will take place at Sportsman’s Pub at 4:00, prizes will be handed out and drawings for door prizes will take place.

Carp’s Landing Restaurant will host the second annual Fire & Ice Chili Cook-off from noon until 2 pm. Contestants will compete for cash prizes in three chili categories, red, white and green. Judging will be done by event goers who will pay $5 to sample each chili and rate each one on a point system. The chili with the most points at the end of the event will win. Registration is at Carp’s Landing, entry fee is $5. Download the form here. They will also have live music from 4:00 pm until close.

At 1:00 on Saturday afternoon kids may enter the Decorated Sled Parade, participants will parade around Commons Park downtown and prizes will be given in different categories. The Snow Ball eating contest, frozen fish toss and the IdiderDAD race are scheduled to start at 1:30 in the park.

Competitors in the Snow Ball eating contest will be required to eat their ice cream snow balls. Sponsors for the event are  Water House Foods Café and Bakehouse and Timber Creek Pizza.

The frozen fish toss will be like an old fashioned egg toss, with teams of two tossing the fish back and forth across an ever widening space. Drop the fish and get disqualified. The Fish Toss is sponsored by Carp’s Landing Restaurant & Bar – of course:)

The IdiderDAD race will harness dads to sleds, provided by The Main Street Program, with a kid of their choice on board. Registration for these events is free and can be done before the event starts. The race is sponsored by Bungalow Jo’s.

Start out the day on Saturday with a hot pancake breakfast at Trinity Lutheran Church, 346 W. Pine St. Food will be served from 8 to 11 am.

Gold sponsors for the event are Lakeland Cold Storage and Leader Printing; silver sponsors are Dutch Designs, Chapter Two and TT’s Timeout. Ice sculpture sponsors include The Wine Vineyard, Bartle’s Beach Cottage, Dutch Designs, Lakeland Cold Storage, TT’s Timeout, CV Hair Company, Lake Mills Golf Course, Water House Foods Café and Bakehouse and Anderson Group, S.C.. The Fisheree is sponsored by Chapter 2, Inc., Topel’s Towing & Repair, Watson Ace Hardware,  and The Party Mart

History of the Knickerbocker Ice Company
Rock Lake’s high quality water and close proximity to nearby urban markets made it an ideal location for the ice harvesters of the late Victorian era. In January of 1890 the Washington Ice Company built a huge ice warehouse on the shores of Rock Lake where Sandy Beach is now located. The four story, 600 foot long building could hold 50,000 tons of ice and had a 44 foot high slide ramp.

In 1900 the Knickerbocker Ice Co. purchased the building. At this time its ice capacity had doubled to 100,000 tons of ice. The building was so large that the flat topped roof was used as a baseball
diamond.

Ice harvesting technology at the turn of the century was very basic.  Ice was harvested by cutting a checkerboard pattern into the lake using horse-drawn saws.  The blocks of ice were then hoisted from the freezing water and stored in ice houses until warmer weather created a demand.  This ice was kept frozen by its sheer bulk; the more tightly it could be packed together the longer it would stay cold.

In its heyday the Knickerbocker Ice Company employed over 200 men to cut and store the winter bounty of Rock Lake.  So many workers were imported for the harvest that it was both disturbing and profitable for the community.  The men were boarded on site and paid $1.25 per day.  In 1909 the ice harvest was completed on March 4 and 1,000 carloads of ice were harvested at 25 tons per car!

The ice industry eventually became a victim of its own success.  America’s appetite for ice spurred technology to create mechanical methods of freezing.  Home delivery of ice continued thru the 20’s, but by the 30’s electric refrigerators replaced ice boxes in most households.

Mother Nature also helped bring the era of the large ice house to an end. The Knickerbocker Ice House was hit by tornadoes in 1909 and again in 1914. Though there was still harvesting for a number of years after the near destruction of the building, it would never come close to what it once was.  The last
harvest was in 1919 and by 1922 Sandy Beach Resort opened ushering in the change from winter to summer industry on Rock Lake.