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Iceland Renovation 2003
Iceland Opening Day 1940 Iceland is located at Jackson Street and California Avenue in Paramount, California (Los Angeles County). Paramount is on the northern border of Long Beach.
Iceland Float in the Hynes-Clearwater Day Parade Until unified as the City of Paramount in 1948, the area was known as Hynes and Clearwater, two neighboring communities. Because of a Union Pacific rail station in Hynes, it became an important shipping center in the 1930's. The Hynes hay market became a world leader and the largest receiving point for hay in the world. The dairy business flourished in the area as many Dutch families emigrated to Hynes-Clearwater and the neighboring towns of Artesia and Bellflower shortly after World War I. When Iceland was built, it had a strong following from the Dutch community with their skating backgrounds and the speed skating club they formed in the early 1940's at Iceland, the Demorra Club, produced many champions. Frank and his brother, Lawrence Zamboni, had an ice manufacturing plant in Hynes in the 1930's but with the advent of refrigerators, they decided to build an ice skating rink to replace the potential loss in their ice business. Frank's inventiveness became evident when he started experimenting with a refrigerated ice floor very different from the normal type composed of a gridwork of steel piping beneath the ice. Frank's idea was to create a flatter and smoother ice sheet by circulating the salt brine in large flat tanks covering the entire area of the ice floor. The tanks would be only one-half inch thick and a series of them would extend from one side of the rink to the other, all tied together with large pipes serving as manifolds. Frank built a test floor next to the Zamboni Bros. ice plant and because it proved successful, he and Lawrence, with their cousin Pete Zamboni, built Iceland in 1939 using Frank's concept. Frank obtained a patent on his unique idea in 1946. (U. S. patent No. 2,411,919). Iceland became well known for the level quality of its ice surface because Frank had eliminated the rippling that often occurred with pipe floors. The steel tank ice floor served Iceland well until it was replaced by a conventional plastic pipe grid in 1977. Also unusual at Paramount Iceland was the fact that its refrigeration plant was separated from the rink by California Avenue. The rink was built on the east side of the street while the Zamboni Bros. ice plant continued operating on the west side of the street. The refrigeration compressors functioned at the ice plant and ammonia refrigerant was piped beneath California Avenue to a large brine tank on the rink side. This system worked fine until 1976 when the ice plant burned down and it was decided to rebuild the freezing plant adjacent to the rink. In spite of the fire, no ice time was lost because a trailer mounted refrigeration unit owned by the Ice Capades happened to be in the Los Angeles area. Frank borrowed it and plugged it into his system while he built a new freezing plant. Iceland has gone through many renovations since its opening in 1940 and while it celebrated its 60th birthday in 2000, its appearance is modern and its amenities are designed to appeal to today's customers. Since 1940, Iceland has been a practice facility for many well-known skaters including Sonja Henie, Richard Dwyer, Peggy Fleming and Robbie Robertson, just to name a few. Many of its skaters have represented Iceland's skating clubs in National, World, and Olympic competitions. The Arctic Blades Figure Skating Club members have excelled and won medals for many years and tragically the Club was also represented by five of its members in 1961 when an airplane crash claimed the entire United States World Team in Brussels Belgium. The DeMorra Speed Skating Club has also had exceptional skaters in National and International events. Bill Disney won a Silver Medal in the 500 meter event at the 1960 Winter Olympics and many members have won medals in other competitions. Iceland is extremely proud of having perhaps the only pipe organ currently playing regularly in any ice skating arena in the country. The organ was originally installed at Iceland in 1941 and continues to be played weekly to the enjoyment of the skating public. Truman Welch was the original organist at Paramount Iceland and oversaw the various installations and moves made to the organ. He later became manager of Iceland as well as organist and remained in this capacity until his death in 1968. (More on Truman Welch) The original Iceland organ had a two manual console (that is, two layered keyboards) and consisted of 10 ranks (a rank is one musical sound and may have 61 to 103 notes).
To eliminate these problems, the organ loft was moved to the entrance end next to the console room. During this move, the original console was replaced by a three manual unit and grew from 10 ranks to 14 ranks. The first 2 manual console was a Model 210 ten rank organ and is now in the possession of Truman's son, Gary Welch. Moving the organ loft to the entrance end of Iceland and next to the console created new problems as the acoustic quality was lacking because the sound came from a corner of the rink dome. To enhance the sound, Frank decided to build a completely new structure at the end of the rink away from the entrance. He and Truman wanted the organ to have a stereo effect and accomplished this by splitting the organ's various instruments or ranks into two lofts on either side of the console. For this last move, a third console was purchased and placed between the lofts on a turntable so the organist could rotate his position in relation to the ice surface. The turntable would move 1/4 turn, allowing Truman to bounce back and for the between the pipe organ console and a Hammond electric organ that was also on the rotating platform. The third console and relays came from the Fox Theatre in San Jose, California. This took the organ up to its present 19 ranks. The swell shades (flaps which control the intensity of the organ's output to the arena) came from the Los Angeles Paramount Theater (since torn down). The console from that organ is at Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo, California. Upon Truman's death, the muzette rank went back to his estate, as it was his personal property.
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When
first installed, the keyboard console of the Wurlitzer organ was
located at the entrance or south end of the rink and the organ
"loft" (the room containing the instruments) was at the
other end, 200 feet away. This complicated playing the organ
as the sound was delayed reaching the organist. It was also
difficult to maintain the multitude of control wires between the
distant locations. At times, the cables (which were covered in
cotton back in those days) connecting the console and pipes would
short out from the condensation, thus making certain notes or
instruments inoperative. 
