The Ice Mine At Trough Creek

Did you know? Trough Creek State Park has what its park guide calls a natural refrigerator, the Ice Mine.

How it began is told two ways. A 1969 geology guide to the park by John P. Wilshusen of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey says the Ice Mine is not a real mine but a short opening into the hillside, dug, perhaps, as a prospect hole in the early days of mining. The current park guide says instead that workers building a railroad line likely discovered cold air flowing from the mountainside. In the 1930s, it says, the CCC developed the site as one of three tourist ice mine sites in the state.

The cold comes from the hill above. Frost and weathering broke the ledges there into a mass of loose slabs and blocks, and in winter the spaces between them fill with cold air. In spring and summer that cold air flows down through the rocks and into the Ice Mine.

In the past, snowmelt and moisture in the air refroze in the entrance. The park guide says little ice forms there now, likely because the stone wall around the Ice Mine blocks the snowmelt, but in spring and summer visitors can still feel the chill of winter by stepping down into it.

Checked 2026-10-30 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

← All stories from Todd township

Have something to add to this story, or a photograph of it? Send it here →