Albert Lea’s Fountain Lake is officially ice-free.

According to Bill Malepsy, the city’s ice observer, March 17 will be recorded as Fountain Lake’s ice-out date for 2012.

He said the date tied the record for earliest recorded ice-out date in 1966.

Malepsy, who has been observing and recording ice-out dates for Fountain Lake since 1969, said the last of the ice this year was in Dane Bay. It melted at 3 p.m. Saturday.

Last year’s ice-out date was April 8.

This is the 100th year of the formal listing for ice-out dates for Albert Lea’s centerpiece lake. The latest recorded ice-out date for this lake is April 30, 1953.

Malepsy said he started observing and recording the ice-out dates for Fountain Lake in the spring of 1969. He’s continuing a local tradition started by John E. “Pop” Murtaugh who died on June 1 that year.

Malepsy had earlier agreed to take over the local tradition of establishing and recording the yearly ice-out dates.

Murtaugh was the owner and operator of the Casino, a lakeside dance hall and rowboat rental service at the north end of Newton Avenue in 1912. The melting of the ice cover on Fountain Lake was a prime business concern for Murtaugh. Thus, in the spring of 1912 he started to record the date the lake would be entirely free of ice. He reportedly would paddle a canoe all the way around the lake’s shoreline, including the bays, to check on the status of the hopefully ice-free surface.

Now the ice status is checked by driving around the lake and checking on places like Dane Bay, Edgewater Bay and the Bancroft Channel. Also, Malepsy has several friends who help him with watching the status of the lake’s ice-out status.

Malepsy and his son, Mark, operate Bill & Mark’s Barber Shop on East Clark Street in Albert Lea.