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If necessity is the mother of
invention, Frank J. Zamboni might be
considered its father. This tireless
inventor/entrepreneur never came across
an obstacle he couldn't tinker his way
around.
Frank J. Zamboni was born on
January 16, 1901 in Eureka, Utah.
Frank's parents moved their family
(with one year old Frank in tow) from Eureka to a farm in Idaho,
where Frank developed his mechanical
skills. For more information about the
Zamboni family history, see
"The Man Behind
the Machine".
In 1920,
Frank moved to Southern
California with his brother
Lawrence to join their older brother
George in his auto repair business.
After a short time tinkering on cars,
the two younger Zambonis decided to open
an electrical service business catering
to the local dairy industry. The
brothers built and installed the large
refrigerator units dairies used to keep
their milk cool.
When the demand for cooling
expanded into the produce industry, the
brothers expanded their business vision,
as well: they built a plant that made
the block ice that wholesalers used to
pack their product for transport by rail
across the country. But as refrigeration
technology improved, demand for block
ice began to shrink, and Frank and
Lawrence started looking for other ways
to capitalize on their expertise with
ice.
That opportunity came in the
sport of ice skating. Popularity of the
sport was growing, but there were few
rinks in Southern California, so in 1939
Frank, Lawrence, and a cousin built
Iceland Skating Rink in Paramount. (The
rink still operates today just blocks
from the Zamboni® factory. In fact,
it's not unusual to see Zamboni ice
resurfacers driving down the
neighborhood streets on their way to be
tested at Iceland.)
Iceland
Paramount, Calif.
Iceland opened in 1940
as one of the largest rinks in the
country, with 20,000 sq. ft. of iced
surface -- that's enough room for 800
skaters. The original rink was an
open-air facility. But the brothers soon
learned that, with the intense Southern
California sun and dry desert winds, the
quality of their ice sheet was less than
adequate, so they covered it with a
domed roof. The challenge now was to
maintain this much-improved indoor
surface. More
about Paramount Iceland.
At the time, resurfacing the
ice meant pulling a scraper behind a
tractor, shaving the surface. Three or
four workers would scoop away the
shavings, spray water over the surface,
squeegee it clean and allow the water to
freeze -- a process that took more than
an hour. For Frank, it was a puzzle to
be solved: how could he make a good
sheet of ice in a short period of time?
It wasn't long before he began
engineering a machine that would make
the task of ice-resurfacing fast and
efficient. And the concept of the
Zamboni ice resurfacer was born...
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