![]() "And there's all kinds of stuff in the meat that you don't want to eat." "Everybody who read it or heard about it read instead that, oh my god, eating meat is bad - it's dangerous," Chandler says. If you were dining out, you were taking a big risk.”Īs a result, ground meat especially became seen as a legitimate health risk. “It's a book that takes the country by storm,” says Chandler. In 1906, journalist Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle," a book highlighting the brutal treatment of animals, unsanitary conditions and poor working conditions at meat processing plants. ![]() But there was a big problem: Americans didn’t trust ground beef. Ingram saw promise in Anderson’s hamburger stands and wanted to turn them into a large-scale restaurant chain, the likes of which didn’t yet exist. "Billy Ingram is the ultimate 1920s booster, you know, those kinds of Machine Age industrialists just hustling nonstop to sell you something," Chandler says. Historians believe that Anderson’s notoriety would have likely stayed within the confines of Wichita, though, if he hadn’t ultimately crossed paths with Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram. 'We're going to stand behind our product' "As a result the 'Hamburger king' resides in an imposing $12,000 home on the Hill." "Once a self-admitted Ne'er do well, a cook who came to Wichita less than a decade ago, learned that owners of big limousines have tastes for hamburgers and prefer to pay a nickel for them," the article reads. That same year, Anderson expanded to four stands - and was being hailed as “King of the Hamburger” in The Wichita Eagle. Census, Wichita had a whopping 72,000 residents by 1920. Photograph was taken in the 1920s.Īccording to the U.S. Ohio History Connection Walt Anderson and Billy Ingram eating White Castle hamburgers outside a White Castle building. They wanted something that was quick and savory and hardy and cheap, and that is exactly what these sliders provided,” says Adam Chandler, author of Drive-Thru Dreams, a Journey Through the Heart of America's Fast-Food Kingdom. “The people who were eating the hamburgers initially were Walt Anderson's factory worker clientele. ![]() The combination of more people moving to cities in general - and the Kansas oil boom in particular - caused Wichita’s population to boom. Wichita had been known as a "Cowtown" ever since cattle drives in the late 1800s, but starting in the early 1900s, it also became a place of innovation and industrialization. He famously encouraged his customers to “buy ‘em by the sack" - which they did.Īt the time, multiple things were converging in Wichita to create the perfect demographic for these unique sandwiches. Ohio History Connection This interior view of White Castle Number 24 in Chicago, with customers placing and waiting for orders, was photographed in April 1983.Īnderson’s burgers were so popular that in 1916, he went out on his own, outfitting an old shoe repair stand with three stools and a sign: "Hamburgers, 5¢.” The birth of America's first fast-food chain If you ate it now, you'd probably call it something else: a slider. "He put it between two halves of a bun, and now we have the food that we're most familiar with." “Prior to that, it had been essentially a meatball on a slice of bread," Hogan says. in the late 1800s.īy flattening the patty and putting it in between two halves of a bun though, Anderson took a giant culinary leap forward Hogan calls it the beginning of the “modern” burger. Technically, the combination of hot ground beef between two slices of bread first arrived in the U.S. To be clear, Anderson didn’t invent the hamburger. “There’s this one anecdote about how he was frying these meatballs," says David Hogan, author of Selling ‘em by the Sack, White Castle and the Creation of American Food, "and he got frustrated and took this spatula and just slammed it down. It was there, as the legend goes, that Anderson created his version of the hamburger. Ohio History Connection A young girl opening wide to take a bite of a White Castle hamburger, ca.
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