Clearly I’m not an entrepreneur…

I’m working with Prof. Kimerling’s 3.003 class at MIT this semester. As part of the class, he has a number of guest speakers. Fred Salvucci presented a two hour “History of Transportation in Boston” and that’s where I heard this crazy historical fact.

In the 1800s, enterprising entrepreneurs created ponds around the greater Boston area in order to harvest ice. One fellow even went so far as start a business shipping ice from Boston to Puerto Rico. And this venture, which failed rather quickly, helped found Belmont, Massachusetts–a town I drive through everyday on my commute to work.

When Frederic Tudor created the ice-shipping business out of Boston in the 1800s he had no idea that his risky venture would help a small farming community on the western shore of Fresh Pond become a town.

Belmont Historical Society. (2009). The Ice Age on Fresh Pond. Retrieved on February 25, 2010 from Belmont 150 Website: http://www.belmont150.org/articles/ice.php