Category:Ice City, Allentown, Pennsylvania

Ice City, at 17th & Turner Streets (620 North 17th Street) opened in February 1956 when Richard (Dick) Muller bought the Pure Ice & Coal Company. Muller was an Army Air Forces B-26 Marauder engineer-gunner in World War II. He worked as a New Jersey state policeman before graduating from Muhlenberg College in 1948, and taking a job at Hess's Department Store in downtown Allentown. He learned retailing from the late Max Hess Jr., and became one of the store's top executives.

Miller planned to consolidate several of his business ventures and go into the wholesale and retail sale of ice, along with his swimming pool business. and the sale of Black Angus beef. For a while, he was the only supplier of ice to Allentown Hospital. He subsequently closed his Aqua Gardens swimming pool concern at 30th & Gordon, as well as being a distributor of beef though an arrangement with the M Feder & Company. His plan was to distribute ice dispensing machines in Allentown and to provide colored and sculptured ice blocks for parties, banquets, wedding receptions and other events.

In the fall of 1961, to boost his sales in the winter, Miller began the sales of Christmas items, such as decorated artificial trees, and ornaments to the swimming pool and outdoor equipment business. In 1962, Miller added a floral shop and arranging service, becoming an all-year, seasonal store. During the 1960s, the store expanded into selling indoor recreational equipment, such as pool tables, and opened additional branches in Pottstown (1968) and Norristown (1969). A Reading store opened in 1976. There were also out-of state locations in Connecticut, Florida, and New Jersey.

Just after Labor Day, September 4th 1979, the Allentown store was completely gutted by a three-alarm fire. The entire inventory inside the store was destroyed, although the main warehouse at St. Cloud and Allen Streets was saved from destruction. Part of the warehouse was quickly converted into a retail store and business continued. The original structure was subsequently torn down and converted into a pool park outdoor showroom. No definite cause for the fire was ever found, although it may have been started by an electric short in the building, which dated to 1936.

Economic issues forced the business to contract in the early 1990s, closing its Reading store in 1992. The Norristown store was closed previously in 1978. Then in July 1993, the business abruptly closed after 33 years with a $44 million debt. Ice City's finances steadily weakened over the past several years as increased competition, sagging consumer spending and poor summer weather contributed to consistent sales drops. A reorganization of the business led to the sale of the firm to Namco, a large pool and patio furniture company shortly afterwards. The Christmas store business was never reopened after the sale.

Namco moved the business to 2020 MacArthur road in South Whitehall, where it operated successfully until September 2007, when it went out of business during the recession that year. Today, the location of the original Ice City store is occupied by a Walgreens drug store. Dick Mueller passed in September. 2005.