Ice Cave

In 1945 at the Kentucky State Fair, Wayne County placed fourth in natural resources with things like oil, timber, coal, the largest number of miles of natural fishing streams and abundant wildlife and natural scenery resources like the 'ice cave.'

An ice cave?

The Louisville Courier-Journal reported in 1899 that there was an ice cave on old "Uncle" Tom Kelsey's farm, about 14 miles east of Albany and 1.5 miles from Gap Creek Store, near the Clinton/Wayne county line, on a spur of Poplar Mountain. Inside, a sink of some eighty yards almost perpendicular opened up a cavity in the earth filled with rooms of various sizes and dimensions. On all sides was large deposits of the most perfect process of the refrigerator, compact pure, lasting and perfect in every respect. The cave was high up on the ridge and anybody in the surrounding community having a yen for ice could go in and get it.

The newspaper wrote that Mammoth Cave had been praised and eulogized time and again as being the greatest curiosity of Kentucky, and even of the world, but It remained for the county of Clinton to come to the front with a phenomenon in the nature of a cave that surpassed all others.

In the article, Bony Baker and William Cheek, who had visited the cave and used the ice, vouched for "the truth of it, and said ice cave was the finest refrigerator In the world. They reported that people for miles and miles around would go there during the summer for their ice. Cheek said he explored the cave on July 4, 1880, took out a lump of ice, wrapped it In a bed blanket and drove to Somerset, where the Ice weighed fifty pounds, thus showing Its compactness and endurancs of heat.

In 1933, the Times Tribune in Corbin, Kentucky said Ice Cave had gotten its name because of its ability to preserve ice through the summer months. Kelsay said he had known of ice being removed from the cave as late as September. The ice formed early in the spring and if properly taken care of would be a great help to a family through the summer. Cheek had gone into the cave in late May of 1933 and brought out ice for freezing ice cream.