The King of Cool: The Refrigeration Revolution

The summer heat can spoil more than your mood, it used to spoil everything.

Before 1935, if you needed to move fresh food, medicine, or even life-saving blood, you packed it in ice and hoped it would survive the journey. Most of the time, it didn’t. That gamble cost lives.

Then came a self-taught mechanic named Frederick McKinley Jones, working out of a Minnesota garage with scrap parts and relentless determination. He built something the world had never seen: a portable refrigeration unit that could keep food and medicine cold on the move.

Frederick Jones works on a design for a thermal control device. Getty Images

Without Jones, there’d be no ice cream trucks, no refrigerated groceries, no drones transporting organs. He didn’t have money, a degree, or privilege, but he had drive. And that changed the way the entire world eats, delivers medicine, and saves lives.

Orphaned at a young age, Jones bounced between homes before striking out on his own. Working odd jobs, he taught himself mechanics well enough to become a garage foreman. Later, in the Army during WWI, he passed on his skills by teaching fellow soldiers electrical circuitry.

After returning home, Jones worked in garages and the trucking industry, often tinkering late into the night. He had no funding, no prestige, just a relentless determination to solve problems others ignored.

In 1938, when a truck owner complained that his cargo kept spoiling, Jones got to work. Using salvaged junkyard parts, he built a compact, durable, shock-resistant cooling unit that could keep food cold on the road. By July 1940, he held a patent for the world’s first successful mobile refrigeration system. Soon after, he co-founded Thermo King, producing refrigerated trucks that carried fresh food to soldiers during World War II and life-saving medicine and blood to field hospitals.

U.S. Patent No. 2,303,857

His invention didn’t just keep supplies cool. It saved lives in war zones where freshness meant survival. After the war, it reshaped how the entire world eats, making fresh produce, dairy, and other perishable goods accessible year-round.

Today, refrigerated transport touches nearly everything we eat, every vaccine administered, every unit of blood delivered where it’s needed most. And yet, few know the man who made it possible.

A black and white photograph of Frederick McKinley Jones, taken around 1950 with his invention, a refrigerated truck. Minnesota Historical Society

Frederick McKinley Jones went on to hold more than 60 patents for breakthroughs in refrigeration and medical technologies. He was constantly innovating, often asking for little in return, and is now recognized as one of the most influential Black inventors of the 20th century.

Frederick McKinley Jones reminds us that innovation doesn’t require prestige, a degree, or a lab. It takes relentless drive and the courage to build what no one else will. He is the King of Cool, a man who redefined transportation, medicine, and survival with relentless, world-changing ideas. And we still benefit from his genius every single day.