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Hamburger History
1238 - When Genghis Khan's grandson, Khubilai Khan (1215-1294), invaded Moscow, they naturally brought their unique dietary ground meat with them. The Russians adopted it into their own cuisine with the name "Steak Tartare," (Tartars being their name for the Mongols). Over many years, Russian chefs adapted and developed this dish and refining it with chopped onions and raw eggs.
18th and 19th Centuries In 1802, the Oxford English Dictionary defined Hamburg steak as salt beef.
It had little resemblance to the hamburger we know today. It was a hard
slab of salted minced beef, often slightly smoked, mixed with onions and
breadcrumbs. The emphasis was more on durability than taste. According to Theodora Fitzgibbon in her book The Food of the Western World - An Encyclopedia of food from North American and Europe: The originated on the German Hamburg-Amerika line boats, which brought emigrants to America in the 1850s. There was at that time a famous Hamburg beef which was salted and sometimes slightly smoked, and therefore ideal for keeping on a long sea voyage. As it was hard, it was minced and sometimes stretched with soaked breadcrumbs and chopped onion. It was popular with the Jewish emigrants, who continued to make Hamburg steaks, as the patties were then called, with fresh meat when they settled in the U.S. The Origin of Hamburgers and Ketchup, by Prof. Giovanni Ballarini: The origin of the hamburger is not very clear, but the prevailing version is that at the end of 1800' s, European emigrants reached America on the ships of the Hamburg Lines and were served meat patties quickly cooked on the grill and placed between two pieces of bread.
1906 - Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), American novelist, wrote in his book called The Jungle, which told of the horrors of Chicago meat packing plants. This book caused much distrust in the United States regarding chopped meat. Sinclair was surprised that the public missed the main point of his impressionistic fiction and took it to be an indictment of unhygienic conditions of the meat packing industry. This caused people to not trust chopped meat for several years.
Most of the following stories on the history of the hamburgers were told after the fact and are based on the recollections of family members. For many people, which story or legend you believe probably depends on where you are from. You be the judge! The claims are as follows: 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 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. He was known to many as "Hamburger Charlie." He returned to sell hamburgers at the fair every year until his death in 1951, and he would entertain people with guitar and mouth organ and his jingle: Hamburgers, hamburgers, hamburgers hot; onions in the middle, pickle on top. Makes your lips go flippity flop. The town of Seymour, Wisconsin is so certain about this claim that they even have a Hamburger Hall of Fame that they built as a tribute to Charlie Nagreen and the legacy he left behind. The town claims to be "Home of the Hamburger" and holds an annual Burger Festival on the first Saturday of August each year. Events include a ketchup slide, bun toss, and hamburger-eating contest, as well as the "world's largest hamburger parade." 1885 - The family of Frank and Charles Menches from Akron, Ohio, claim the brothers invented the hamburger while traveling in a 100-man traveling concession circuit at events (fairs, race meetings, and farmers' picnics) in the Midwest in the early 1880s. During a stop at the Erie County Fair in Hamburg, New York, the brothers ran out of pork for their hot sausage patty sandwiches. Because this happened on a particularly hot day, the local butchers stop slaughtering pigs. The butcher suggested that they substitute beef for the pork. The brothers ground up the beef, mixed it with some brown sugar, coffee, and other spices and served it as a sandwich between two pieces of bread. They called this sandwich the "hamburger" after Hamburg, New York where the fair was being held.
The Menches family is still in the restaurant business and still serving hamburgers in Ohio. On May 28, 2005, the town of Akron, Ohio will host the First Annual National Hamburger Festival to celebrate the 120th Anniversary of the invention of the hamburger. The festival will be dedicated to Frank and Charles Menches. That's how sure the city of Akron is on the Menches' family claim on the contested contention that two residents invented the hamburger. The Ohio legislature is also considering making hamburgers the state food. 1891 - The family of Oscar Weber Bilby claim the first-known hamburger on a bun was served on Grandpa Oscar's farm just west of Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1891. The family says that Grandpa Oscar was the first to add the bun, but they concede that hamburger sandwiches made with bread may predate Grandpa Oscar's famous hamburger. Michael Wallis, travel writer and reporter for Oklahoma Today magazine, did an extensive search in 1995 for the true origins of the hamburger and determined that Oscar Weber Bilby himself was the creator of the hamburger as we know it. According to Wallis's 1995 article, Welcome To Hamburger Heaven, in an interview with Harold Bilby: The story has been passed down through the generations like a family Bible. "Grandpa himself told me that it was in June of 1891 when he took up a chunk of iron and made himself a big ol' grill," explains Harold. "Then the next month on the Fourth of July he built a hickory wood fire underneath that grill, and when those coals were glowing hot, he took some ground Angus meat and fired up a big batch of hamburgers. When they were cooked all good and juicy, he put them on my Grandma Fanny's homemade yeast buns - the best buns in all the world, made from her own secret recipe. He served those burgers on buns to neighbors and friends under a grove of pecan trees . . . They couldn't get enough, so Grandpa hosted another big feed. He did that every Fourth of July, and sometimes as many as 125 people showed up." Simple math supports Harold Bilby's contention that if his Grandpa served burgers on Grandma Fanny's buns in 1891, then the Bilbys eclipsed the St. Louis World's Fair vendors by at least thirteen years. That would make Oklahoma the cradle of the hamburger. "There's not even the trace of a doubt in my mind," say Harold. "My grandpa invented the hamburger on a bun right here in what became Oklahoma, and if anybody wants to say different, then let them prove otherwise."
My great-grandfather, Oscar Weber Bilby invented the hamburger on July 4, 1891. He served ground beef patties that were seared to perfection on a open flame from a hand-made grill. My great-grandmother Fanny made her own home-made yeast hamburger buns to put around the ground beef patties. They served this new sandwich along with their tasty home-made rood beer which was also carbonated with yeast. People would come for all over the county on July 4th each year to consume and enjoy these treats. To this day we still cook our hamburger on grandpa's grill, which is now fired by natural gas. On April 13, 1995, Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma proclaimed that the real birthplace of the hamburger on the bun, was created and consumed in Tulsa in 1891. The State of Oklahoma Proclamation states: Whereas, scurrilous rumors have credited Athens, Texas, as the birthplace of the hamburger, claiming for that region south of the Red River commonly known as Baja Oklahoma a fame and renown which are hardly its due; and Whereas, the Legislature of Baja Oklahoma has gone so far as to declare April 3, 1995, to be Athens Day at the State Capitol, largely on the strength of this bogus claim, and Whereas, while the residents, the scenery, the hospitality and the food found in Athens are no doubt superior to those in virtually any other locale, they must be recognized. In the words of Mark Twain, as "the lightning bug is to the lightning" when compared with the Great City of Tulsa in the Great State of Oklahoma; and Whereas, although someone in Athens, in the 1860's, may have place cooked ground beef between two slices of bread, this minor accomplishment can in no way be regarded comes on a bun accompanied by such delight as pickles, onions, lettuce, tomato, cheese and, in some cases, special sauce; and Whereas, the first true hamburger on a bun, as meticulous research shows, was created and consumed in Tulsa in 1891 and was only copied for resale at the St. Louis World's Fair a full 13 years after that momentous and history-making occasion: Now Therefore, I, Frank Keating, Governor of the State of Oklahoma, do hereby proclaim April 12, 1995, as THE REAL BIRTHPLACE OF THE HAMBURGER IN TULSA DAY. 1900 - Louis Lassen of New Haven, Connecticut is also recorded as serving the first "burger" at his New Haven luncheonette called Louis' Lunch Wagon. Louis ran a small lunch wagon selling steak sandwiches to local factory workers. A frugal business man, he didn't like to waste the excess beef from his daily lunch rush. It is said that he ground up some scraps of beef and served it as a sandwich, the sandwich was sold between pieces of toasted bread, to a customer who was in a hurry and wanted to eat on the run. Kenneth Lassen, Louis' grandson, was quoted in the September 25, 1991 Athens Daily Review as saying; "We have signed, dated and notarized affidavits saying we served the first hamburger sandwiches in 1900. Other people may have been serving the steak but there's a big difference between a hamburger steak and a hamburger sandwich."
Louis' Lunch is still selling their hamburgers from a small brick building in New Haven. The sandwich is grilled vertically in antique gas grills and served between pieces of toast rather than a bun, and refuse to provide mustard or ketchup. Library of Congress named Louis' Lunch a "Connecticut Legacy." The following is taken from the Congressional Record, 27 July 2000, page E1377: Honoring Louis' Lunch on Its 105th Anniversary - Representative Rosa L. DeLauro: . . . it is with great pleasure that I rise today to celebrate the 105th anniversary of a true New Haven landmark: Louis' Lunch. Recently the Lassen family celebrated this landmark as well as the 100th anniversary of their claim to fame ? the invention and commercial serving of one of America's favorites, the hamburger . . . The Lassens and the community of New Haven shared unparalleled excitement when the Library of Congress named Louis' Lunch a "Connecticut Legacy" ? nothing could be more true. 1904 - The hamburger gets its first widespread attention at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, where it created a sensation. A reporter for the New York Tribune wrote from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair of a new sandwich called a hamburger, ?the innovation of a food vendor on the pike.? By ?Pike? he meant the World's Fair midway. Most Texans believe the vendor in question was Fletch Davis (1864-1941), also known as "old Dave" who owned a lunch counter in Athens, Texas. Supposedly Fletch Davis, at his Athens lunch counter, 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. According to some historians, he opened up a concession stand and began selling the ground beef patty sandwich at the amusement area, known as The Pike (there is no evidence for that claim, however). According to the book Beyond The Ice Cream Cone - The Whole Scoop on Food at the 1904 World's Fair by Pamela J. Vaccaro: There is no Fletcher Davis on the official concessionaire's list or on the final financial balance sheet of the LPE Co., and the company certainly would not have let anyone exert any kind of "squatter's rights."
In 1983, Frank X. Tolbert, former newspaper columnist of the Dallas Morning News, wrote the following in his book Tolbert?s Texas, The Henderson County Hamburger: "It took me years of sweatneck research before I finally determined, at least in mine and in some other Texas historian?s estimation, that Fletcher Davis (1864-1941), also known as ?Old Dave? of Athens, in Henderson County, Texas, invented the hamburger sandwich." In 1984, a plaque was placed on the Ginger Murchison Building, approximately on Fletch Davis' cafe site. 1916 - Walter Anderson from Wichita, Kansas, a fry cook, developed buns to accommodate 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. In 1921, Anderson co-founded the White Castle Hamburger with Edgar Waldo "Billy" Ingram, an insurance executive, in Wichita, Kansas. It is the oldest hamburger chain. They serve steam-fried hamburgers, 18 per pound of fresh ground beef, cooked on a bed of chopped onions, for a nickel. 1931 - Popeye the sailor man, a cartoon figures in the comic strip created by American cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar (1894-1938) in 1929, and syndicated by the Hearst newpaper's King Features syndicate featured the character J. Wellington Wimpy, known as Wimpy. Wimpy joined the Popeye comic strip in 1931, and he played a significant role in popularizing the hamburger in the United States. Wimpy is probably best know for his consumption of hamburgers. Wimpy loves to eat hamburgers, but is usually too cheap to pay for them. A recurring joke is Wimpy's attempts to con other members of the diner into buying him burgers. Wimpy often tries to outwit fellow patrons with his convoluted logic. His famous line is "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." The popularity the character Wimpy spawned a successful chain of hamburger restaurants called Wimpy's, that flourished for over a decade. This burger went for the upscale market at 10 cents a burger. In keeping with the founder's wishes, all 1,500 restaurants were closed down when he died in 1978.
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1209-1121 - Genghis Khan (1167-1227), crowned the "emperor of all
emperors," and his army of fierce Mongol horsemen, known as the "Golden
Horde," conquered two thirds of the then known world. The Mongols were a
fast-moving, cavalry-based army that rode small sturdy ponies. They stayed
in their saddles for long period of time, sometimes days without ever
dismounting. They had little opportunity to stop and build a fire for
their meal. The entire village would follow behind the army on great
wheeled carts they called "yurts," leading huge herds of sheep, goats,
oxen, and horses. As the army needed food that could be carried on their
mounts and eaten easily with one hand while they rode, ground meat was the
perfect choice. They would use scrapings of lamb or mutton which were
formed into flat patties. They softened the meat by placing them under the
saddles of their horses while riding into battle. When it was time to eat,
the meat would be eaten raw, having been tenderized by the saddle and the
back of the horse.
1600s - Ships from the German port of Hamburg, Germany began calling on
Russian port. During this period the Russian steak tartare was brought
back to Germany and called "tartare steak."
Immigrants to the United States from German-speaking countries brought
with them some of their favorite foods. One of them was Hamburg Steak. The
Germans simply flavored shredded low-grade beef with regional spices, and
both cooked and raw it became a standard meal among the poorer classes. In
the seaport town of Hamburg, it acquired the name Hamburg steak. Today,
this hamburger patty is no longer called Hamburg Steak in Germany but
rather "Frikadelle," "Frikandelle" or "Bulette," orginally Italian and
French words. 
Meat Choppers 
Restaurant Menus
Cookbooks
History of American Hamburgers
According to family legend, Frank didn't really know what to call it, so
he looked up and saw the banner for the Hamburg fair and said, "This is
the hamburger." In Frank's 1951 obituary in The Los Angeles Times, he is
acknowledged him as the ''inventor'' of the hamburger.
In 1933, Oscar and his son, Leo, opened the family's first hamburger stand
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, called Weber's Superior Root Beer Stand. They still
use the same grill used in 1891, with one minor variation, the wood stove
has been converted to natural gas. In a letter dated July 31, 2004 to
myself, Linda Stradley, Rick Bilby states the following:
In the mid-1960s, the New Haven Preservation Trust placed a plaque on the
building where Louis' Lunch is located proclaiming Louis' Lunch to be the
first place the hamburger was sold.
According to an article written by John E. Harmon called The Better Burger
Battle:
In 1904 Davis and his wife went to the St. Louis World's Fair either on
his own or the townspeople took up a collection to send him (there is no
evidence for that claim, however). Whoever paid for the trip, he was
there since a reporter for the New York Tribune wrote from the fair of a
new sandwich called a hamburger, "the innovation of a food vendor on the
pike." The reporter did not name the vendor but Athens resident Clint
Murchison said that his grandfather had strong memories of the sandwich
in the 1880s but remembered the innovator only as "Old Dave." Murchison
also had a large photograph of the midway at the 1904 fair with "Old
Dave's Hamburger Stand" marked apparently by his grandfather. When Davis
returned from the fair there were already several cafes in Athens
serving the sandwich and he went back to firing pots in the Miller
pottery works. Tolbert's investigation proved that "Old Dave" was
Fletcher Davis from Athens (Tolbert 1983).
1941 - A California Supreme Court decision, that arose from a sales tax
dispute where the plaintiff wanted a refund of taxes paid, under protest,
on sales made during the 1937-39 World's Fair on San Francisco's Treasure
Island. Operating food booths, it "sold only frankfurter (commonly
referred to as 'hot dog') and hamburger sandwiches, together with coffee,
milk, ale and beer," the per curiam decision said. The issue was whether
these sandwiches constituted a "meal," rendering them exempt from the
sales tax. Resolving the issue against the concessionaire, the high court
said:
A 'hot dog' or hamburger sandwich is the type of food frequently offered
for sale to and desired by persons who wish to eat something while
walking about. It is not the type of food generally ordered by a person
who patronizes a hotel, restaurant or other public eating establishment
with the intention of securing a 'meal'".It may not be said that one has
'served' a meal who merely prepares a sandwich for consumption, wraps it
in a paper napkin and hands it to a purchaser without offering any
facilities for its consumption on the premises, and with the intention
that it be consumed elsewhere.