When Were Ice Cream Cones Invented?
When Were Ice Cream Cones Invented? Ice cream cones probably appeared as early as 1896 and were made by Italo Marchiony. Marchiony, who emigrated from Italy in the late 1800’s, invented his ice cream cone in New York City. He was granted a patent in December 1903, but this novel way of eating ice cream didn’t become popular until several years later.
When an ice cream vendor at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair ran out of cups for his ice cream, the sugar-waffle concessionaire who occupied the adjoining booth solved the problem by rolling his waffles into the shape of cones to hold the ice cream. This treat was immediately popular, and the ice cream cone was on its way. Ice cream cones have remained a favorite to this day, with billions of cones consumed every year.
The story goes like this: Ernest A. Hamwi, a Syrian concessionaire was selling a crisp, waffle-like pastry — zalabis — in a booth right next to an ice cream vendor. Because of ice cream’s popularity, the vendor ran out of dishes.
Hamwi saw an easy solution to the ice cream vendor’s problem: he quickly rolled one of his wafer-like waffles in the shape of a cone, or cornucopia, and gave it to the ice cream vendor. The cone cooled in a few seconds, the vendor put some ice cream in it, the customers were happy and the cone was on its way to becoming the great American institution that it is today.
St. Louis, a foundry town, quickly capitalized on the cone’s success. Enterprising people invented special baking equipment for making the World’s Fair cornucopia cones.
Stephen Sullivan of Sullivan, Missouri, was one of the first known independent operators in the ice cream cone business. In 1906, Sullivan served ice cream cones (or cornucopias, as they were still called) at the Modern Woodmen of America Frisco Log Rolling in Sullivan, Missouri.
At the same time, Hamwi was busy with the Cornucopia Waffle Company. In 1910, he founded the Missouri Cone Company, later known as the Western Cone Company.
As the modern ice cream cone developed, two distinct types of cones emerged. The rolled cone was a waffle, baked in a round shape and rolled (first by hand, later mechanically) as soon as it came off the griddle. In a few seconds, it hardened in the form of a crisp cone.
The second type of cone was molded either by pouring batter into a shell, inserting a core on which the cone was baked, and then removing the core; or pouring the batter into a mold, baking it and then splitting the mold so the cone could be removed with little difficulty.
In the 1920s, the cone business expanded. Cone production in 1924 reached a record 245 million. Slight changes in automatic machinery have led to the ice cream cone we know today. Now, millions of rolled cones are turned out on machines that are capable of producing about 150,000 cones every 24 hours.