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Home > Local Features by WXPR > How The Eagle River Ice Castle Became A Tradition
Podcast: Local Features by WXPR
Episode:

How The Eagle River Ice Castle Became A Tradition
Category: Government & Organizations
Duration: 00:02:56
Publish Date: 2019-01-02 05:00:00
Description: Since 1933, volunteers in the Eagle River area have been getting together around this time of the year to build an ice castle. How did this tradition start, though? Gary Entz has the story as part of our weekly series A Northwoods Moment in History . On the weekend nearest to the New Year, volunteers in Eagle River gather on Silver Lake to score and cut over 2,300 blocks of ice. Each block is 12” x 10” x 20” in size and weighs roughly 60 to 70 pounds each. These blocks are subsequently hauled to Railroad Street in Eagle River where volunteers stack them into place in order to construct a glistening palace of ice. The Eagle River Ice Castle is an annual Northwoods tradition, but how did this unusual practice get started? The first Ice Palace was constructed in Eagle River in December 1933. In that year, Edward Bandow, with help from William Radue, gathered a number of volunteers to cut 400 blocks of ice out of Silver Lake. The blocks were hauled to the corner of Wall and Railroad
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