1885 - Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin, at the age of 15, sold hamburgers from his ox-drawn food stand at the Outagamie County Fair. He went to the Outagamie County Fair and set up a stand selling meatballs. Business wasn't so good and he quickly realized that it was because meatballs were too difficult to eat while strolling around the fair. In a flash of innovation, he flattened the meatballs, placed them between two slices of bread and called his new creation a hamburger. Hamburger Charlie returned to sell hamburgers at the fair every year until his death in 1951.

1890 - Louis Lassen of New Haven, Connecticut is also recorded as serving the first burger at his New Haven luncheonette called Louis' Lunch in 1890. He ground up some scraps of beef and served it as a sandwich to a customer who was in a hurry and wanted to eat on the run.

1891 - Otto Kuasw was a cook in a restaurant on the waterfront in Hamburg, Germany, made a sandwich that the sailors who stopped at the port like very much. It was made with a thin patty of ground beef sausage fried in butter. A fried egg was placed on top of the meat and then placed between two slices of lightly buttered bread. This sandwich as known to the sailors as Deutsches Beefsteak. In 1894, sailors who had been to Hamburg and visited the port of New York, told restaurant owners about Otto's great sandwiches and the restaurants began making the sandwiches for the sailors. It is said that all the sailors had to do was to ask for a hamburger.

1892 - The family of Frank Menches, claim he invented the hamburger in 1892 in Athens, Texas by substituting ground beef for pork in his famous sausages on one particular day when high heat and humidity forced butchers to stop slaughtering pigs. A group of Athens businessmen that were taken with his sandwich, sponsored a trip to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis so Davis could bring the hamburger to everyone in America.

1904 - Most Texans seem to think that the real beginning of the hamburger was when Fletch Davis (also known as old Dave) from Athens, Texas decided to try something new in 1904. He took some raw hamburger steak and placed it on his flat grill and fried it until it was a crisp brown on both sides. Then he placed the browned patty of meat between two thick slices of homemade toast and added a thick slice of raw onion to the top. He offered it as a special to his patrons to see if they would like it. Well, it didn't take long for word to spread that Old Dave had cooked up the best darn sandwich in Texas. At the urging of his friends and family, he opened up a concession stand and began selling the ground beef patty sandwich at the amusement area, known as The Pike, at the St. Louis World's Fiar Louisiana Purchase Ehibition in 1904.

1916 - Walter Anderson, a fry cook, developed buns to accomodate the hamburger patties. The dough he selected was heavier than ordinary bread dough, and he formed it into small, square shapes that were just big enough for one of his hamburgers. He quit his job as a cook and used his life savings to purchase an old trolley car and developed it into a diner featuring his hamburgers.

---

SOURCES:
American Forum - Fast Food History, Handout #4: Mcfast-food Conques America, http://www.globaled.org.curriculum/ffood4.html, an internet web site.

Bull Cook and authentic Historical Recipes and Practices, Volume II, by George Leonard Herter & Berthe E. Herter, 1967.

Cheap burger in paradise (History of the hamburger), North Carolina Discoveries, http://www.nando.net/ncd/week2/burger5.html, an internet web site.

Hamburgers - Who Cooked That Up/, http://members.home.net/jjschnebel/Cookkup8.htm, an internet web site.

Hamburgers and Mustard: A Match Made in Wisconsin, by Eric Model, published by Hidden America - USA Today, July 23, 1999.

Louis' Lunch (A little bit a history), http://www.imbored.com/new/a5457501.htm, an internet web site.

Paying Homage To The Hamburger Is A Patriotic Duty, by Doris Reynolds, Naples Daily News, May 26, 1999, http://www.naplesnews.com/today/neapolitan/a1216p.htm, an internet web site.

The American and His Food, Revised Edition, by Richard Osborn Cummings, published by University of Chicago Press, 1970.

The Burger Museum, http://www.burgerweb.som/museum.htm, an internet web site.

The Complete Hamburger - The History of America's Favorite Sandwich, by Ronald L. Mcdonald, published by Carol Publishing Group, 1997.

The Food Chronology, by James Trager, published by Henry Holt and Company, 1995.

The Night 2000 Men Came To Dinner, by Douglas G. Meldrum, published by charles Scribner's Sons, 1994.

World's First Hamburger, http://www.athenet.net/~69camaro/hamburger.html, an internet web site.