Short answers, pulled from the story.
The first ice house built by Zimri-Lim in Mari was recorded on a cuneiform tablet in 1780 BCE. This ancient structure marked the beginning of human attempts to control the natural world's most volatile element, transforming winter's fleeting gift into a year-round resource.
Persian engineers constructed yakhchals in the desert by 400 BCE using evaporative cooling, radiative cooling, solar chimney, and diurnal heat reservoir techniques. These structures featured a conical shape above ground with a subterranean storage space, shade walls, and an ice pool to create a self-sustaining system requiring no external power source.
James I commissioned the first modern ice house in 1619 in Greenwich Park and another in Hampton Court in 1625. These structures were commonly brick-lined, domed, and mostly underground, with conical or rounded bottoms to hold melted ice and drains to remove the melt-water.
The home ice delivery business in the United States declined until it had virtually disappeared by the late 1960s. This decline occurred as home and business refrigeration became more commonplace, making ice houses fall into disuse.
The Southland Ice Manufacturing Company developed the 7-Eleven chain, first known as U-Tote'm Stores, from ice houses in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio in the 1930s. This company operated ice houses that diversified to sell groceries and cold beer, serving as early convenience stores and local gathering places.
A passage beneath Ardgillan Castle in Co. Dublin, Ireland, was discovered in 1985 to be the ice house that had been known to exist on the grounds. This discovery provided a glimpse into the past and the lives of the people who lived in the castle.