We’re beginning to make “merch”—cool stuff like coffee cups and hats. We’ll tell you more later.
Who Invented the Ice Cream Cone? The Story Behind an American Favorite
Who invented the ice cream cone? The answer isn't as simple as you might think. Discover how the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair helped make it an American favorite.
PEOPLE & PORCH STORIESHISTORY, TRIVIA & CURIOUS THINGS
Rom Webster & Opa
The Day America Accidentally Got a New Favorite Food
A Reach One Media Story
It was hot in St. Louis that summer. And if you were wandering around the enormous 1904 World's Fair with thousands of other visitors, ice cream sounded pretty good. There was just one problem.
You needed something to put it in.
Lingering Stories
One of the most popular stories from this fair involves a Syrian immigrant named Ernest Hamwi, who was selling a thin, crisp, waffle-like pastry. According to the tale, an ice-cream vendor nearby ran short of dishes. Hamwi rolled one of his warm wafers into a cone, let it cool, and handed it over. Ice cream went inside. And an American favorite was born.
Well... maybe.
The trouble with really good stories is that everybody wants to have witnessed it when it happened.
Several vendors at that St. Louis fair later received credit for inventing the ice-cream cone. And historians know that people had actually eaten ice cream with wafers before. In fact, in 1903 Italian immigrant Italo Marchiony received a U.S. patent for a mold for producing edible cups for serving ice cream.
An Unexpected Discovery
So the 1904 World's Fair probably wasn't where somebody suddenly invented the idea from nothing. What happened there was probably even more important.
America discovered the ice cream cone!
More than 19 million people attended that fair during its seven-month run. They came from across the country to see new inventions, exhibits, and glimpses of what the future might look like. And somewhere in that enormous spectacle, people began walking around eating ice cream out of crisp, edible cones.
What a clever idea that was! No bowl. No spoon. And no dish to return.
You ate the ice cream. Then you ate the container. Was there ever a better solution to doing the dishes!
The Cone Traveled Fast
Abe Doumar, another man associated with the fair's ice-cream-cone story, later developed equipment for making cones efficiently. His family established Doumar's in Norfolk, Virginia, where cones would be made for generations.
The cone started showing up at amusement parks, boardwalks, fairs and ice-cream shops around the country. It had transformed ice cream into something wonderfully portable.
These days, we like our inventions to have birthdays. We want one inventor, one moment, and one triumphant shout of, “I've got it!” But history usually isn't that tidy.
Sometimes different people are experimenting with the same idea. Then somebody puts it in front of the right crowd at the right time, and suddenly everybody wants one.
We might never know who actually served the world's first ice-cream cone. But during one hot summer in St. Louis, America learned something important:
The best dish for ice cream is the one you eat when you're finished eating the ice cream.
Our Story
That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.
[Editor’s Note: Historical information for this story was drawn, in part, from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and U.S. Patent records.]
* FOR NEWSPAPER EDITORS *
The “One Good Story” feature is available for publication by community newspapers. Use the form below to get information to download an editable Word version of this feature, along with publication information and available artwork.
