disappeared by the late 1960s. Smaller ice houses, often no more than a sawdust pile covered by a makeshift roof or tarpaulin, continued to be maintained for storing ice for use in local events such as fairs. Today, most ice for daily consumption is made in a home freezer, while bulk ice is manufactured, distributed and sold like other retail commodities. At least one icehouse is still operated traditionally, as a tourist attraction on New England campsite. Texas and the American South In Texas, former ice houses are a cultural tradition. Ice merchants diversified to sell groceries and cold beer, serving as early convenience stores and local gathering places. The widespread 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores in the U.S., first known as U-Tote'm Stores, developed from ice houses operated by ice manufacturers, like the Southland Ice Manufacturing Company, in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio in the 1930s. Southland was not the only company in the Southern United States to develop a convenience-store corporation from an ice business. Munford Inc. of Atlanta began in the early 20th century by vending both ice and coal from mule-drawn wagons, as the Atlantic Ice and Coal Company. By the 1970s, Munford, Inc. was operating a large chain of convenience stores with the name Majik Market (the company was sold in 1988 and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1990). In some parts of Texas, especially from San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country down to the Mexican border, ice houses functioned as open-air bars, with the word "icehouse" becoming a colloquialism for an establishment that derives the majority of its income from the sale of cold beer. The distinction between South Texas ice houses and ice houses of other parts of the state and the South has been connected to the Catholicism of the region, a deeper-rooted Mexican culture, and the influence of German immigrants. See also Deep water source cooling Ice cutting Ice pond Seasonal thermal energy storage (STES) Thermal energy storage References Further reading External links Map of ice houses along the Kennebec River, 1891, Maine Memory Network, Maine, U.S. Ice trade Cooling technology Indigenous architecture House types Warehouses Vernacular architecture