It’s what people did before air conditioning. They would get a block of ice and set it before a fan. The fan would blow across the ice and, perforce, the air would be colder.
Yep...the original ‘swamp cooler’. Family members have/had those, in west TX.
They won’t work in SE TX’s REAL swamp, though :-(
I saw another rigged up invention that uses ice blocks at the bottom of a 5 gal bucket, with pvc tubes poking out (above ice/water level), and, a fan facing down, on top of (cut out) lid.
A lot of trouble to get cool...but, when you’re melting in the heat...you think of any and everything, I guess.
I do something like this in the barn for my livestock dogs (Pyrenees) - I don’t use ice, but just a bucket of water and the evaporation helps keep them cool. One of my pyrs lays in front of that thing all day!