Before mechanical refrigeration, keeping things cold required a global empire of ice — harvested by hand from frozen ponds, shipped across oceans, and delivered to your doorstep by men whose lungs were slowly destroyed by ammonia leaks. The story of how we got from 'guy with a giant saw on a New England lake' to 'box in your kitchen that just works' is a wild ride through monopolies, accidental explosions, and the single engineer who changed what it meant to be alive in summer.