Before the 1830s, food was preserved through salting, spicing, pickling, or smoking. Butchers slaughtered meat only for the day's trade, as preservation for longer periods was not practical. Dairy products and fresh fruits and vegetables subject to spoilage were sold in local markets since storage and shipping farm produce over any significant distance or time was not practical. Indeed, milk was often hauled to city markets at night when temperatures were cooler. Ale and beer making required cool temperatures, and its manufacture was limited to the cooler months. The solution to these problems was found in the harvesting of natural ice.

The early ice industry was localized. Farmers cut small harvests from local ponds, and only better homes, taverns, and hotels purchased ice from local dealers. Ice was a luxury not commonly available to the public except for cooling drinks. Eventually, urbanization, improved icebox technology, and consumer demand - including the popularity of mineral waters, fruit juices, and ice cream - stimulated the creation of an American ice industry. Farmers increased their use of ice for meat and dairy use. Food cooled with ice could be shipped by railroad to more distant places. During the last half of the nineteenth century, ice became a necessity for home and business, and by the 1870s there were substantial ice dealers in medium-sized communities like Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. By 1880, the American public was consuming an estimated 5 million tons of ice per year.

Pennsylvania was the nation's third largest producer of ice, following Maine and New York. Pennsylvania consumed about 1 million tons annually, cut on the state's lakes and rivers or bought from Maine and New York ice firms. The industry, by this time, also supported major conglomerated ice firms; the best known was the Knickerbocker Ice Company of New York, which also reached into Pennsylvania. With the growth of the ice industry during the 1880s, substantial companies were formed in the Pocono region. Companies harvested ice from Saylor's Lake, Trout Lake, Mountain Spring Lake, Lake Naomi, Stillwater Lake, Pocono Lake, and the Lakes at Tobyhanna. The largest company operating in Monroe County was the North Jersey and Pocono Mountain Ice Company.

Albert Lewis and Arthur L. Stull were the founders of two major ice production companies in Luzerne County. In the mid-1890s, Lewis and Stull jointly founded the Mountain Springs Ice Company in Ross Township, located now in state game lands adjacent to Ricketts Glen State Park. Lewis left the Mountain Springs company in 1912. Stull, along with his brother Albert A. Stull, and son Robert A. Stull, then managed the Mountain Springs Ice Company. Lewis founded an even larger ice company, the Bear Creek Ice Company, in March 1895.

Beginning in January 1881, Lewis and Brodhead began to harvest ice at Bear Creek. There were a series of ice plants over time at Bear Creek Dam No. 1. In 1895 Lewis formed the Bear Creek Ice Company. At Bear Creek Dam No. 1, he built two large ice plants (Plants 1 and 2), and he also built Plants 3 and 4 at two dams at Beaupland (later called Beauplant) further up on Bear Creek. In the 1910 period he also had a facility to load ice on the railroad at Meadow Run pond No.1 (Plant 5), and a sixth plant at Meadow Run Pond No. 2. From 1911 to 1915 he also cut ice at Penn Lake. (He was also the founder of the ice operations at Mountain Springs near Ricketts Glen in the 1890s, selling the Mountain Springs plants to his nephew Arthur L. Stull in the early 1910s).