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The Hood River Glacier, Hood river, OR., December 15, 1904, page 6

BIG ICE PLANT AND WAREHOUSE
Davidson To Expend $15,000
Will Erect Brick Structure this Spring - Joe Wilson has Another Brick in Contemplation

A two-story brick cold storage warehouse and ice plant to be erected during the coming spring at a cost of $15,000 is under contemplation by the Davidson Fruit company. This company has purchased the warehouse and lease of railroad property from Joe Wilson, who in turns accepts a lease of ground between the warehouse and the Fruit Growers' union and Page & Son. Mr. Wilson also announces that when he puts up another warehouse it will be a 2-story brick structure.
The proposed warehouse of the Davidson Fruit company will be 40x100 feet in extent, and will be erected on the present site of the Wilson warerooms, which be moved immediately to grounds with the cannery formerly stood. Here it will be used during the coming berry season as an office and receiving wareroom.
The ice plant to be installed will have a capacity of seven tons a day, and will be erected chiefly to make ice for the refrigerator cars loaded here. As one fruit car requires five tons of ice, to meet the needs of 15 or two dozen cars a day a large quantity of ice will have to be manufactured early in the season and kept on hand in a large cold storage room. The same room will be used later in the year for storing winter apples. It will have a capacity of 35,000 boxes of apples.
Mr. Davidson said he first learned their real worth of the cold storage warehouse room for apples from Bert Van Horn. Mr. Van Horn has a large ice plant and warehouse near Buffalo, where he stores his winter apples until late in the spring.
Van Horn says that apples packed in October will shrink inside of a month if not packed in cold storage, but fruit like the Baldwin apple if packed when picked and immediately placed in cold-storage will be first class when placed on the market next spring. With this means of keeping Hood River apples, the new chemical storage plant of the Davidson Fruit company will mean much to the apple growers of the valley.
The cold storage ware rooms will be useful in the berry season. Berries received in the heat of the day will be shoved into the cooling room before being placed in the refrigerator cars. Mr. Davidson says he has found out from California shippers that it is the sudden changes of temperature and moisture precipitated in the refrigerator cars by the warm fruit placed therein and allowed to cool that produces mould on the fruit. The fruit melts the ice and send the temperature up in the car. When the car is re-iced the temperature suddenly goes down again. It is this change of the temperature that is believed to cause the mould.
California fruit men are able to ship cherries all the way to New York by cooling the fruit before putting it in the refrigerator cars, while Hood River cherries spoil in going to Denver.
"Whether or not this plant will be erected the spring depends the spring depends altogether on the weather," said Mr. Davidson. If the weather is such as to permit us to begin building operations in February there will be plenty of time to complete the work before the berry season. "If we cannot begin in February operations will have to be postponed until later in the summer, as such a delay would throw the works into the shipping season."