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

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Raffle tickets for the Knickerbocker baskets are now on sale at TT’s Timeout, Water House Foods, The Wine Vineyard & Sweet Lips! Here’s what’s in each basket:

On the first weekend of each February, the Lake Mills Main Street Program holds the Knickerbocker Ice Festival. The festival brings area residents out into the cold Wisconsin winter to have a great time and celebrate our community with fun activities on Rock Lake, in Commons Park and in downtown businesses. The festival took its name from the ice company that harvested ice from Rock Lake during the 1890’s through the early 1900’s. (See more about the history of the company at the bottom)

There’s lots of fun planned for the third annual Lake Mills Main Street Program’s Knickerbocker Ice Festival, scheduled for Friday and Saturday, February 5 & 6.  Besides the ice sculptures, Iceberg Open golf tournament and ice fisheree on Rock Lake, games in the park, chili cook-off, and special promotions from a number of local businesses, there will be a Team Trivia Contest on Friday Feb. 5.

The Knickerbocker Team Trivia Contest will be held from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm in the Community Room at City Hall, 200 Water Street. Teams can have between six and eight players; each player pays $10 to play. Cash prizes will be given to the top three teams. 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.

Just like last year, there will be a special Main Street Event Menu that will feature Knickerbocker food and drink items and many of the retailers will have special promotions for ice festival attendees who wear a Knickerbocker button. The buttons sell for $15 each and will get you free entry to the Iceberg Open golf tournament, a discount on the fisheree registration, a discount on Knickerbocker merchandise and all kinds of specials and deals from Lake Mills businesses. Buttons will be available for purchase at many downtown businesses. In some cases the promotions will run from the beginning of January through Knickerbocker Weekend.

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.

Carp’s LandingRestaurant will host the second annual Fire & Ice Chili Cook-off from 11 am 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. They will also have live music from 4:00 pm until close.

The Sno Ball eating contest, frozen fish toss and the IdiderDAD race are again scheduled for Commons Park on Saturday afternoon. Competitors in the Sno Ball eating contest will be required to open and eat their snack cakes with their mittens on. 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 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.

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.