Historical Tidbits
Traditions of New Year’s past included gifts, open houses
New Year’s gifts were popular during the 1870-90 era in Greeley, and some were elaborate or unusual. In 1876, a “lady friend” of Greeley merchant E.T. Nichols gave him a half-grown live elk. Greeley businesses rewarded their customers with calendars, articles in the newspapers encouraged people to give up sinful habits, and various churches launched the new year with a week of evening services and prayers.
In 19th-century Greeley, New Year’s Day was the appropriate time for ladies to receive gentlemen in their homes. Married and single women listed their addresses and “calling hours” in the paper. Refreshments were always served at these ladies’ open houses but never alcohol — well, almost never!
On Jan. 7, 1882, the Greeley Sun (a rival newspaper of The Tribune) wrote: “We learn that at one residence in town, wine was offered to callers on New Year’s Day. This is to be regretted for several reasons. It was contrary to the sentiment of this community; it was setting a bad example; and worse than all, it was placing a temptation in the way of the young men to whom it was offered. There are well authenticated instances where men date their downfall from the acceptance of a social glass of wine offered by a lady friend on New Year’s Day.
So well known are these facts, that it has had a discouraging effect upon the practice in the past, and it is hoped that but a few years will elapse before the custom will be obsolete. Of all the places in the world, Greeley should be the last to set the example of social wine drinking. We are glad to note that one of the clergymen at the Tuesday evening meeting had the courage to denounce the act we speak of.”
Harvesting ice once was big local business
In the era of iceboxes, local ice was laboriously harvested and delivered to Greeley homes. The Greeley Tribune noted in its Jan. 25, 1871, edition that Capt. Abbott of Greeley intended to store 200 tons of 16-inch-thick ice for the summer in a single-walled frame structure insulated with a 2-foot thickness of hay. According to the article, having plenty of ice was necessary as “No greater insult can be offered to a temperance man than to offer him warm water to drink.”
In January 1875, 75 carloads of Greeley ice were shipped via the Kansas-Pacific Railroad to Kansas City. In January 1890, the Windsor Lake Company had a contract to ship 3,000 tons of ice to Denver and other places along the Union Pacific line. Twenty cars of ice were to be shipped each day from Windsor until the contract was filled. Ice also was being cut near Evans, and for a few years ice known for its clarity and quality was cut from Seeley’s Lake northwest of Greeley.
Seeley’s Lake was constructed in 1873 as a wastewater reservoir for Union Colony Canal No. 2. Landowner Joseph Seeley enlarged the reservoir about 1883, stocking it with perch and bass. By 1895 he had built a boat dock and dance pavilion, and promoted the area as Lakeside, “a charming resort for the pleasure seekers of Weld County.” During the winter, Seeley harvested and sold ice from the lake.
In 1897 the Greeley Ice and Storage Co. was established, and ice-making equipment from Reading, Pa., was installed the next year in an unused portion of the Greeley Pump Works. With capacity production at four tons of ice per day, hand-harvested ice was soon a thing of the past.
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