In 1917, a Philadelphia man named John E. Kieffer Sr. started a tire business. To make ends meet, he also delivered blocks of ice to neighbors who needed to keep their iceboxes cold.
It was unglamorous work, but it paid.
Then electric refrigerators arrived, and the ice trade evaporated almost overnight. Kieffer had a choice: defend a business that no longer had a future, or follow the customer somewhere new…