History Revisited by Jerome Meyer

When you hear the word “Scotsman”, you probably relate it to something or someone involved with the country of Scotland.  However, if you are a long term resident of Albert Lea, you may recall the name “Scotsman” to a company that at one time was located in the city and manufactured commercial ice making machines.

Scotsman has a long and storied history of doing business in Albert Lea.  And there is an interesting story back of every Scotsman Ice Machine.  It goes way behind around 1894 when a man named H.C. Hanson started tinkering and began developing a gas lighting apparatus in the old C.D. Edwards building on West William Street.   He named his firm the American Gas Machine Company and attracted some local investors which enabled the company to expand.

In 1904 the current building was too small as the business grew and a new factory building was erected at 415 East William Street. With the growing gas lighting industry, the company again expanded by erecting  a new 66 ft. by 140 ft. six-story  building in 1910 on East Clark Street where the current Albert Lea City Center is now located.  The company again expanded in the 1920’s with the construction of a large manufacturing plant at 505 Front Street.   Factory production and large employment continued at both locations into the 1930 era manufacturing gas lanterns, camp stoves under the trade name of Kamp Kook.  Also kitchen stoves and water heaters were manufactured which were marketed all over the United States and into foreign markets.

When the depression settled in and caused economic problems coupled with a disastrous labor strike, the company never economically recovered.  The advent of World War ll revived production when the company secured war contracts to produce gasoline lanterns, field range burners, portable stoves and heaters.

Scotsman can start to trace its existence back to 1921 when a local resident Mr. F.A. Trow founded the company which eventually evolved into Scotsman.  Mr. Trow in 1921 resigned his job as sales manager for American Gas Machine Company in Albert Lea and went into the manufacturing of a pressure fuel camp stove under the name of Queen.

Within a short period of time, the Queen name became nationally known, which eventually was formed into the name of Queen Stove Works.   In 1950, Queen Stove Works acquired the American Gas Machine Company which were strong competitors, and then added lanterns, ice chests, lines of space heaters and one model ice machine.

Late in the 1950s Queen Stove Works moved all of its manufacturing from the East Clark location to a West Front Street location.   Around 1967-1968 the old AGM factory was demolished and vanished from the skyline to create the site for the new Albert Lea City Center.  From this acquisition, the production of one ice making machine a day grew to the largest output in the industry.   The name “Scotsman” was used to market ice machines from this point forward.   Scotsman eventually became the undisputed world leader in sales in the ice machine market.  There were various types of ice machines making cubed ice, flake (crushed) ice and nugget ice.  Also, ice storage bins and ice dispensers were manufactured.

The doors of Scotsman ice machine production closed in 1988 after about 68 years of doing business in Albert Lea, displacing close to 300 local workers.  The administrative offices of Scotsman were then transferred to a Chicago suburb of Vernon Hills.  The manufacturing of ice machines was transferred to a company factory in Fairfax, S.C., which had been producing Scotsman ice machines since the early 1980’s.  The Scotsman ice machine manufacturing plant on West Front Street is now occupied by Lou-Rich Inc., which is part of the Innovance group of companies.

Over the years, Scotsman had many individual acquisitions in expanding its business — mostly involving food service companies. Also there were many changes involving ownership of the company starting in 1957 when King Seeley acquired Queen Stove Works.  In 1967, King Seeley purchased a large Italian ice making company called Frimont S.P.A., which then began using the Scotsman name, giving Scotsman ice machines a worldwide market.  Some other companies that previously owned Scotsman were named Household Finance Co, Enodis, Warburg Pincus and Manitowoc.  Scotsman is currently owned by an Italian company named the Ali Group in Milano, Italy.

 

Jerome Meyer likes to write about local history.