This ruin is all that remains of a stone building constructed in the middle 1800s from stone quarried locally from the bluffs along the Mississippi River. It was originally a private home and meeting place for the people of Elsah. Christian Loehr purchased the property in 1873 from the Elsah Building and Manufacturing Company, and it was later converted to an ice house. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ice harvesting was an economic activity on the Mississippi River, with river ice cut into blocks and transported to local buildings for storage until use in the warmer months. At one time, Elsah had five ice houses, and men cut the ice by hand.