This three-story brick icehouse is rectangular in plan with a flat roof. The brick walls recede at each floor level, expressive of reduced loads. Engaged brick piers rise above the first story, terminating at a continuous corbelled cornice. The Brown-Joseph Ice Co. operated a plant at this site in the early 1920s which was purchased by the Southern Ice and Utilities Co. of Dallas in 1926. The tax assessor’s abstract mentioned specifically that a “50′ high storage” facility was built here in that year. Block ice was produced at the plant until 1964, when the property was sold and the other buildings demolished. The icehouse, now used as a warehouse, is one of two similar structures in the survey area (see 215 E. Broadway [since demolished]), both of which are excellent examples of functional industrial architecture. Its bulk and location adjacent to railroad tracks are evocative of Fort Worth’s early 20th-century role as a regional manufacturing and distributing center.
