What we know
English capitalists leased the lake from the D&RG in 1873 and built an icehouse on the northwest shore; the railroad took over the harvest by 1882 and in 1889 built a five-unit icehouse at the south end, a skidway over 1,000 feet long and three spur tracks. 18,000 tons were cut in 1899 with four teams and about forty men. The icehouses burned May 17, 1908 with 6,000 tons of ice; the railroad retired its icing facilities in December 1926 (Edwards, PLHS, quoting the papers). The D&RG also cut ice from its Lower Reservoir in North Monument Canyon in 1902.
Where it was
'A five-unit frame icehouse was constructed at the south end of the lake' (Hobie Edwards, PLHS 'Ice Harvesting on Palmer Lake'); the south shore of Palmer Lake in OpenStreetMap. Good to about a quarter mile.
Placed from a written description, such as a land section, a distance from a landmark or an old survey note.
Sources
Sources are named in the text above. Numbers such as S-0080 refer to our source list. Most newspaper quotations were read in the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. Long quotations from recent books are shortened here.