John Gorrie

When mechanization for profit and efficiency started to become a thing, ice machines were subsequently made many times in the 19th century.

Now, the first person to put the knowledge to use and publish the exercise was one John Gorrie in 1844 in South Florida.

As a physician, he was trying to figure out a cure, or at least a treatment, for the annual infections of mosquito-borne yellow fever.

Since warming weather was associated with the arrival of the fever, mightn't cooling dissipate the fever? It seemed worth a try, so he tinkered with what he knew about heat transfer and managed to do the compress-decompress thing with air in contact with water, and voila, he was making ice.