Salinas Ice Plant
The Salinas Ice Plant was a modest industrial operation in the growing town of Salinas, California, serving the community's need for iceboxes and ice-cream parlors with a horse-drawn delivery wagon. When Adam Trask bought the plant after his disastrous lettuce-shipping venture, it became the centerpiece of his attempt to rebuild a purposeful life. The plant was not large, but it supplied the town's houses and businesses, and Adam, who had previously let his ranch lie fallow, found himself drawn to the practical challenges of refrigeration and preservation.
Adam's Obsession with Cold
Adam's interest in the ice plant grew out of a deeper fascination with refrigeration that had taken hold of him after reading about a frozen mastodon discovered in Siberia. He began experimenting with small cups of fruit, pudding, and meat in his icebox, studying bacteria and reading scientific magazines. The ice plant gave him a laboratory for his obsession. He visited the plant regularly, taking his experimental cups to its freezing chambers, and wished that Samuel Hamilton were alive to discuss cold with him. This preoccupation with preservation through cold was the only idea that truly captured Adam's imagination, and it led him to double the output of the ice company, though his business judgment remained questionable.
The Lettuce Failure and Its Aftermath
Adam's great attempt to ship six carloads of lettuce packed in ice to New York ended in disaster when a series of accidents—a snow slide in the Sierras, unseasonable warm weather in the Midwest, and confusion in Chicago—reduced the shipment to slop. The failure cost Adam most of his fortune, leaving him with about nine thousand dollars and the ranch. The townspeople mocked him, calling his sons "Lettuce-heads," and Will Hamilton, who had warned against the scheme, recalled it as proof that dreamers always got into trouble. Yet Adam refused to abandon his belief in refrigeration. "I still believe it will work," he said. "Cold does preserve things. Besides, the plant makes some money." He kept the ice plant, determined to figure something out.
Cal's Bean Speculation and the Partnership with Will Hamilton
After the lettuce failure, Cal Trask, Adam's dark and watchful son, resolved to restore his father's lost fortune. He approached Will Hamilton, who had become a successful businessman through the automobile agency and other ventures. Will, recognizing Cal's sharpness and ambition, proposed a partnership in bean speculation. With the war in Europe driving up prices, Will had a contract with the British Purchasing Agency and connections in the Quartermaster Corps. Cal borrowed five thousand dollars from Lee and joined Will in contracting with farmers to plant beans at a guaranteed price. When the war drove bean prices to twelve and a half cents a pound, Cal's share of the profit came to fifteen thousand dollars—exactly the amount Adam had lost on the lettuce.
The Rejection and Its Consequences
On Thanksgiving Day, Cal presented the money to his father, wrapped in tissue paper and tied with red ribbon. But Adam, who had been serving on the draft board and sending young men off to war, could not accept it. "I send boys out," he said. "I sign my name and they go out. And some will die and some will lie helpless without arms and legs. Not one will come back untorn. Son, do you think I could take a profit on that?" He told Cal he would have been happier with a gift of pride in his brother's progress. Cal, devastated, burned the money in his room, then took his brother Aron to see their mother, Kate, in her brothel—an act that drove Aron to enlist in the army and led to his death in France. Adam suffered a stroke upon learning of Aron's death, and the ice plant, which had been a symbol of his attempt to rebuild, became a backdrop to the family's final tragedy.
