Grayson County TXGenWeb

Diamond Ice Company

The Diamond Ice Company was established in 1913 as competition to the successful Crystal Ice Company located a few blocks north on Houston Avenue. The company did very well for more than four decades, serving Denison citizens with cold items before the advent of refrigerators.

Diamond Ice
Founded 1913
(Notice the "diamond" shape at the top of the building)

The 1913 Denison City Directory listed the new compamy at 106-108 West Crawford Street.

Diamond Ice
110 West Crawford Street
(now Buck's Farm Supply)
Note: Knaur-Lindsey grain elevators above (behind) this building
photo by Mavis Anne Bryant, ca. 1999


Schuyler C. Knaur	John S. Knaur

Officers were Schuyler C. Knaur, president; E. L. Green, vice-president; and A. S. Burrows, secretary-treasurer. In 1917, T. E. Steen had replaced Green as vice-president. In 1921, a time of reorganization at Knaur Grain Company next door, John Simon Knaur replaced Burrows, becoming secretary-treasurer. More reshuffling occurred by 1925 (an era of economic upheaval in Denison in the wake of the Railroad Strike of 1922), with Schuyler remaining president, John Simon becoming vice-president, and Mrs. Vergia G. Steele becoming secretary-treasurer.

John Simon Knaur died in 1933, and his widow Grace C. Knaur took his position as vice-president of Diamond Ice Company. In 1940, Mrs. F. Estle Young replaced Steele as secretary-treasurer. This was the last time Diamond Ice was listed in the Denison City Directory. Apparently Schuyler retired by 1946, the year when Grace Knaur died.

In 1942, the Knaurs sold the company to Community Ice Company of Dallas, which continued operations for fifteen years before bowing out
in 1956.

In 1953, Martellus Webb had started his firm, Webb’s Farm Supply, at 100 East Main Street, on the southeast corner of Main Street and Houston Avenue. In 1956, he was located in the old Texas Electric Railroad building. That year he purchased the Diamond Ice building and moved his company into the location at 106 West Crawford Street. Jan Buchanan eventually took over operations, and the name became Buck’s Farm Supply.

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