
Though it was attached to the old Branch’s Market building and most Tiftonites called this whole corner “the ice plant”, the two were actually separate businesses at one time. The historic Ice Company building was razed along with Branch’s Market. Christian Rogers noted in a comment in 2010, “It was used as an ice plant for years. (As late as mid-90s.) You could drive up and put a dollar in the machine and it would deliver a block of ice on a conveyor belt.”
We had a quick peek inside in 2011 and took some photos while it was still working. It was all pretty shabby and run down by then. https://photos.app.goo.gl/L2A7GdMTH8mmBzBcA
They had their Own well and workers would drive in and fill their coolers And get a small block of ice and put in their Coolers.Best tasting water in Tifton.
In the 1970’s when I was working with seaboard coast line rail road, we went there in the mornings to get ice for our water kegs. They would chip off what we needed from 300 pound blocks of ice. We use to load 300 pound blocks in the back of work trucks and take ice to the kitchen camp cook car on monday mornings and bust the ice into 100 pound blocks(each have 3 sections) and put them into our ice boxes to use all week for food storage and ice for drinking at meals.