Here’s some cool news from the July 8, 1893, Chicago Dispatch:
Yesterday the thermometer nearly reached the one hundredth degree mark, and to-day is not much cooler, yet amidst this sultry heat of midsummer many thousands of visitors to the Midway Plaisance can, and many did, enjoy the enviable pleasure of a genuine sleigh ride on pure white snow.
Not imitation snow, but the pure crystal itself. It is in itself worth a trip to Chicago and to the World’s Fair grounds from the summer heat prevailing throughout the surrounding country to come and enjoy this unique exhibit. For while combining the greatest amount of enjoyable pleasure to the merry jingle of silver sleigh bell over smooth glistening snow, it is at the same time an exhibit of the De La Vergne Refrigerating Machine Company, of New York, showing their process of manufacturing artificial ice and snow by their double acting compressor, using anhydrous ammonia in its process by the direct expansion application.
It is without a doubt the triumph of the nineteenth century. To thus overcome the force of nature, to thus battle against the intense heat of a summer’s sun and have lying outdoors beautiful snow for men, women and children to glide over with a speed both exciting and thrilling.
Since the opening of this new Ice Railway a few days since, thousands of visitors have availed themselves daily of this greatest pleasure on Midway, and the letters written to their homes are filled with glowing accounts of a sleigh ride in midsummer. Everyone should visit this and enjoy a ride. It is on Midway, just south of the Ferris Wheel.
The Ice Railway on the Midway Plaisance of the 1893 World’s Fair. [Image from Smith, Frank H. Art History, Midway Plaisance and World’s Columbian Exposition (Foster Press, 1893).]