Wilson Ice & Fuel Company, Sanborn fire insurance maps of Wilson, N.C., 1922. The site today is roughly the Poplar Street area of Whitfield Homes, just southwest of the Norfolk Southern tracks.
In the early part of the twentieth century, one large ice company (with smaller competitors) dominated the ice business in Wilson. Wilson Ice & Fuel employed numerous African-American men, primarily as laborers. Here, a running list of such employees.
Wilson Ice & Fuel Company
- Joseph Battle, driver, 1912
- Fletcher Bolden, engineer, 1912
- William Campbell, driver, 1912
- John H. Cash, laborer, 1918
- James Daniel, laborer, 1917
- Liston Davis, laborer, 1917
- Nathan Edmundson, laborer, 1918
- Junius Floyd, driver, 1912
- Jim Gary, laborer, 1918
- Charles B. Gay, laborer, 1918
- Jefferson D. Holloway, laborer, 1918
- William Neal, driver, 1912
- James H. Palmer, laborer, 1918
- Julius Parker, laborer, 1918
- George Truesdale, laborer, 1917
- William Williams, wagon driver, 1917.
Wilson Plate Ice Company
- William Bulluck, driver
- Joseph Daniels, driver
Ice house work could be dangerous. Nathan Edmundson’s World War I draft registration card noted that he “was injured by being struck by a block of ice June 27, 1918, and has not yet recovered sufficiently to work regularly.”