Change, not the positive kind, was on the move in Graverville. The swim contests were becoming a thing of
the past. The rooflines of the sheds
that once sheltered and allowed the bricks to dry, sagged now, like the back of
a broken down old mare.
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| Wash-day at Graverville - Facing west: Route 443 as it appeared while under construction in the early 1940s. |
The Lehighton-Tamaqua Highway (what we call Route
443 today) came through here in the early 1940s. Steel being in short supply after the
outbreak of World War II, the completion of the bridge over the Mahoning Creek
at Graverville was stalled until 1946. The roadway split the ice, pool, and skating
facilities from the bungalows of the hillside.
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Steam-roller work with shale to build up the road-way to meet the new
Route 443, otherwise known as the Lehighton-Tamaqua Highway. Henry
Graver's brick home is seen at the left. The bungalow in the center is still
on the corner, though it is largely hidden by a cement barrier at the corner. |
The roadway was an achievement for commerce in the
area. It allowed for more avenues for
transport, a boon for the local garment industries, spawning the Interstate
Dress Carriers trucking terminal, now NEMF.
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Henry Graver residence of 105 East Penn Street. The homes at right with the square roof supports were torn down
in the past few years. |
The beginning - The Recluse of Gnaden Hutten/Lewis Graver lands
Post #1 Alvenia and Adaline Graver
Post #2 Lewis to Henry Graver
Post #3 The Graver Bathing Casino
It also built up Lehighton’s suburban commerce with
the Carbon Plaza Mall, Pizza Como, McDonald’s, and eventually Wal-Mart and
Lowe’s.
The roadway delivered promise to many, but all such promises
seemed to pass the Graver’s right on by.
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| The entrance to the Graver Ice Plant with their 1940s era pickup truck. |
Larry Graver was still in high school when he worked
at Graver’s Ice Plant. In the spring and
fall, he’d prepare and work maintenance on the pool as well. Larry also lived in Graverville with his
parents Francis and Ruth (Hallman) Graver.
His father Francis was one of three sons born to Ralph Graver, Henry
Graver’s only child to produce off-spring.
Larry’s cousin, Stanley Graver, was living in his
great grandfather Henry’s house with his parents Reuben “Rubie” and Iris Graver
at 105 East Penn Street.
Francis and Reuben were two of Ralph Graver’s three
sons. The third and youngest was Ralph
Jr., otherwise known as “Jack.”
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The skating rink as it appeared shortly before it's demolition
in the early 1990s. |
There was little left for Larry and Stanley to get involved
with in those days. The building boom of
their uncles and grandfathers was over.
Refrigerators replaced the daily need for commercially produced
ice. And people were traveling farther
for their entertainment, to points along the Jersey Shore and beyond.
The beginning of the end was the closing of the
skating rink in the late 1950s. At about
that same time, the borough of Lehighton had begun to manage the Graver pool in
the summer but closed it in 1961.
Lehighton opened a more modern municipal pool at Baer Memorial in 1965.
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| A local paper article from the late 1950s. |
The following description of the plant’s operation
comes from a December 2014 interview with Larry Graver:
“The ice plant room was about twenty by forty
feet. There were sixty-four, two foot by
two foot squares that could each make 48” by 24” by 10” pieces of ice.
There was copper tubing into each section filled with
a brine solution, the high salt content gave the refrigerant a colder than thirty-two
degree freezing temperature to speed up the icing process.
The brass or copper tubing went into each section
and bubbled air into the water to keep it moving. This is what gave the ice of this time its
signature white color.”
“Pulling Ice” – “We would work the odd rows first,
and once finished, we’d repeat the process on the even rows. This helped keep the ice you were working
with as cold as possible.
A rolling crane picked up the form with the ice
inside it where it was dipped into a solution of warm water to free it from the
form. The block was tilted and left to
slide on a chute to the other side of the ice house for storage.
At no point during this process did the fresh water
in the ice mix with the brine solution.
There was a deep, fresh water well on site where the water was
drawn. The ice produced here was
potable.
There was a large diesel engine that powered the
entire operation. It was said that you
could hear and feel the mighty thump of this engine as you passed in your vehicle
on Route 443.
(The ice storage house would be beneath the current
pile of the shale parking lot used by truck and trailers along Route 443 across
from Pizza Hut.)
This ran a three-phase generator and had up to ten
V-belts taken off of the power shaft that ran the compressors. In order to start such an engine and set the large
piston in motion, one had to set the eight-foot flywheel by lining it up a
special mark on it with its corresponding marking on the floor.
The ice plant was run by Henry’s sons Ralph and
Stanley. Stanley was a bit more
difficult to work for. He was known for
firing workers at the ice plant and by the time they reached Ralph on the other
side of the property, they would be re-hired.
Stanley passed away in 1958 and Ralph followed him
in 1965.
So the cousins, who worked the last years of these
Graver enterprises, had to look to make their own mark in the business
world.
Larry teamed up with Phil Meyers and created Blue
Mountain Machine. Though he has since
retired and sold his interest, Blue Mountain Machine still operates at 725
State Road (Route 248) but got its start inside the old skating rink on the
Graver property.
In the late 1960s, Stanley Graver branched out to
Route 209 near the Turnpike interchange and built “Stan Graver’s Texaco” which
is now operated by his three sons, Ricky, Allen and Kerry as “Graver Brothers.”
The real estate holdings of the Graver family, the
numerous bungalows that still dot the hillside, were appraised in April of
1989. Then, one by one, each was sold to
either their current inhabitants or to other private families.
Gone within the last few years, a sign at the
traffic light, that told passing motorists of the now bygone hamlet of “Graverville.” Its name still adorns some maps and now and
then this now almost mythical place draws a pilgrim to it.
One such seeker, finding nothing to prove or deny
its existence, was resourceful enough to find “Graver Brother’s Garage.” Once there he found the great, great, great
grandsons of Lewis Graver.
Considering that Lewis first timbered the hemlocks
of the north facing slope of the former Moravian mission back in 1825, all one
hundred fifty plus years before the ice factory's end, I’d say it was a good run, a good run indeed.
