In Red Bay's early years, ice arrived by freight train and was buried in sawdust to keep it from melting until sold, then loaded onto a horse-driven wagon and peddled through town, where stores and homes could buy generous amounts for ten cents and keep it in iceboxes or wrapped in quilts in tubs and other waterproof containers until the next delivery. Later, C.W. Bolton built an ice plant and a cotton gin side by side in downtown Red Bay near the site of today's Arts and Entertainment Center, with the ice plant nearest the main road, and dug a well on his property for the clear, good-tasting water needed to make ice. In 1945, E.J. Gober purchased the ice plant, the cotton gin, and additional property, soon replaced the old facilities with a new ice plant and new cotton gin set farther apart, and operated an ice business in which water froze in large metal tanks or vats, blocks were lifted by overhanging hooks that rolled the length of the building, stored in well-insulated rooms, then moved to a platform and sawed into manageable sizes for townspeople and for trucks running weekly routes in the surrounding community. As electricity spread and refrigerators became common, the ice business declined, while the new cotton gin was active from the first bale in 1948 until it closed in the early 1970s. The Gober Brothers, Eric, Jim, and Jack, were master ginners whose reputation drew farmers from long distances, continuing skills taught by their father, Felton Gober, Red Bay's first mayor, who had operated a water-driven gin on the Mississippi side of Red Bay; Billy Moore, Katrine and Donna Gober, and Felton and Roy Lee Gober also worked at the gin.