Wisconsin’s Love Affair With Ice Cream Is Nothing New

Nothing goes better with summer than ice cream. But until fairly recently, ice cream was a treat reserved for special occasions.

In the past, most people would travel to town for a scoop, which would often be served in the corner of pharmacies and drugstores — as shown in the image of Milwaukee’s Sykes Drug Store above. Ice cream and medicines often appeared side-by-side in these shops, with the pharmacist posing as both druggist and scooper.

Special ice cream parlors boasted elaborate counters, flashy lamps and glittering glassware that made the experience just as memorable as the treat itself. People in larger cities could purchase ice cream from vendors known as “Hokey-Pokey” men, a name of variable origins but thought to be tied to Italy.

Although we’d been eating icy treats from sherbet and sorbet to gelato and ice cream for centuries by the late 19th century, it’s fair to say that Ed Berner of Two Rivers kicked up the dessert game on July 8, 1881, when he topped a dish of ice cream with chocolate sauce at the request of a customer. The ice cream sundae was born that day.

Previously, chocolate sauce had only been used to flavor chocolate sodas, but blue laws prevented the carbonated beverages from being sold on Sundays. Berner was supposedly aghast at ruining the flavor of his ice cream with the chocolate sauce, but he finally relented and the new treat caught on. It became known as a sundae because it was only served on Sundays.

Although Ithaca, New York, likes to claim that the sundae was, in fact, invented there, we’re placing our bets on Two Rivers.

See more great ice cream photos at Recollection Wisconsin.