# Hanks and Doyle icehouses, Monument Lake

- URL: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/hanks-and-doyle-icehouses-monument-lake/
- Also known as: Doyle Ice Company
- Kind: Ice harvesting
- Status: Historic or vanished
- County: El Paso County, Colorado
- Point: 39.0902, -104.878 (from a cited description (good to a quarter mile))

- Updated: 2026-10-06

## What we know

William Doyle and Thomas Hanks leased the lake, then the State Reservoir, in 1901; the first icehouse was of Black Forest lumber from J. W. Higby's sawmill. Doyle bought out Hanks in 1909 and built five houses with steam-driven conveyors (Hugo and Charlie Schubarth's threshing engine) and a railroad spur. A west wind flattened the houses on Dec. 31, 1909 and again in 1943, when the Monument harvest ended. In good years 20,000 to 30,000 tons were cut, 4,000 stored and the rest shipped to Pueblo and Denver; Doyle lost the business to American Refrigerator Transit in 1932 after warm winters broke his contract (PLHS).

## Where it was

'Wm. Doyle owned the land on the east side of the lake. They built the original icehouse with a short chute to carry the ice from the lake' (PLHS 'Hanks and Doyle Ice Company'); the east shore of Monument Lake in OpenStreetMap, beside the railroad. Good to about a quarter mile.

Placed from a written description, such as a land section, a distance from a landmark or an old survey note.

## Nearby

- [Monument](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/monument/): 0.3 mi east
- [Lierd's Store](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/lierds-store/): 0.3 mi northeast
- [Higby Store](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/higby-store/): 0.3 mi east
- [St. Peter Catholic Church (1911)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/st-peter-catholic-church-1911/): 0.3 mi east
- [Methodist parsonage (Father Dyer, 1874)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/methodist-parsonage-father-dyer-1874/): 0.4 mi east
- [Inez J. Lewis School](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/inez-j-lewis-school/): 0.4 mi east

Source numbers (S-0000) refer to https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/. Compiled by Michael Christensen for Palmer Divide Research; CC BY 4.0.