Two Rivers
The REAL Birthplace of the Ice Cream Sundae
The The 127th Anniversary, will be held June 26, 2008 in Central Park.
It's official - Two Rivers is recognized by the Wisconsin State Historical Society as the REAL birthplace of the ice cream sundae. There is a Sundae Week every summer, and the city gathers in Central Park for an old fashioned band concert and ice cream social during the annual Sundae Thursday.
Well-known American language authority, columnist and author H.L. Mencken also pegs Two Rivers as the birthplace of the sundae. The claim is also supported by a 1929 newspaper interview in which the inventor recalls how the sundae came about.
The ice cream sundae story dates back to 1881 when chocolate sauce was used to make ice cream sodas at Ed Berners' soda fountain at 1404 15th Street. One day, a vacationing George Hallauer - a Two Rivers native then living in Illinois - asked Berners to put some of the chocolate sauce over a dish of ice cream. According to a 1929 interview with Berners, he apparently didn't think it was a good idea.
As Berners related in the 1929 Two Rivers Reporter interview, "One night, Hallauer dropped in and ordered a dish of ice cream. As I was serving it, he spied a bottle of chocolate syrup on the back bar, which I used for making sodas. 'Why don't you put some of that chocolate on the ice cream?'" he asked.
"'You don't want to ruin the flavor of the ice cream,' I protested, but Hallauer answered 'I'll try anything once,' and I poured on the chocolate. Hallauer liked it, and the ice cream sundae was born."
The five-cent concoction became pretty popular. Berners, who always served his patrons in an immaculate white jacket, with an unlit cigar between his lips, started experimenting with different flavors - with fancy names. There were treats like Flora Dora, Mudscow, and an ice cream/peanut dish called Chocolate Peany. Apple cider also became a popular replacement for the chocolate.
Berners credits the actual term of "sundae" to another ice cream parlor in nearby Manitowoc. Due to the popularity of the dish in Two Rivers, George Giffy began selling sundaes - but only on Sunday.
That is until a ten year old girl insisted on having a bowl of ice cream "with that stuff on top" even though it wasn't Sunday. "This must be Sunday for it is the kind of ice cream I want," and Giffy relented, of course. He is thought to have started calling the dish a Sunday. How the sundae spelling came about is not quite clear, but the accepted story is interesting, non-the-less. As the legend goes, a glass salesman writing up an order for Berners' canoe-shaped ice cream bowls misspelled Sunday as Sundae. Others believe the name was spelled as it is because it was considered rude to name the ice cream treat for a day of worship.
The popularity of the ice cream sundae spread quickly. Berners said that was the work of a glass salesman who sold the dishes. Hallauer also spread the story, and that's thought to be the reason for some of the confusion about the birthplace of the sundae, since he lived in Illinois. Both Evanston and Rockford are among the communities around the country who have tried to lay claim to the title of "Birthplace of the Ice Cream Sundae."
Author and language expert H.L. Mencken traced the origin of the word sundae for his book The American Language: Supplement 1. After investigating claims by Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ithaca, New York, Norfolk, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., he found the Two Rivers story to be the REAL story.
An interesting side note to the ice cream sundae story - for some reason, the ice cream soda with its carbonated water wasn't popular with the religious community of the day and it came to be known as "the immoral soda." In fact, Two Rivers was just one city that had a law banning the sale of the ice cream soda on Sunday.
You can still get an ice cream sundae at the ice cream parlor in the historic Washington House at 17th and Jefferson Streets. The parlor features pictures and relics of the original Berners store, which is shown at the left, along with an old picture of George Berners, himself.
So that's the REAL truth, and perhaps a bit more, about the ice cream sundae.
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