Frank Zamboni had to keep his dream on ice until his new machine was perfected but — once it was ready — it smoothed the way for tremendous gains in hockey and figure skating. And it all started on the farm.

The son of Italian immigrants, Zamboni was born in Utah and raised in Idaho.

When he was 15, he had to leave school to help on the family farm where part of his responsibility was to keep tractors and hay balers running.

Zamboni’s flair for mechanics deepened when his older brother, George, opened a car repair shop after the family moved to Hynes, California, south of Los Angeles.

The young man was sent to Chicago for a one-year electrical engineering program and — when he got back — he and his brother, Lawrence, opened their own electrical business while also drilling wells and installing water pumps for dairy farmers in the area.

Many of those farmers shipped their products by rail in cars refrigerated by giant blocks of ice weighing 136 kilograms, or 300 pounds. So in 1927, Frank and Lawrence built their own ice-making plant.

But then fridges hit the consumer market, and ice blocks on the trains were soon replaced by commercial refrigeration. So the brothers sold their plant but kept its refrigeration equipment and opened a skating rink across the street.

The Iceland Skating Rink opened in January of 1940 and was a big hit.

But maintaining the ice was costly. Five men had to use planers, hoses, and squeegees........

© Sarnia Observer