(NEXSTAR) – There are some foods so synonymous with the U.S. that it’s hard to imagine a time when they didn’t exist. Apple pie, sliced bread, frozen pizza – the list can go on.
There’s also the cheeseburger, which has evolved into sought-after fast food offerings, staples at craft breweries, and contestants in “best burger” contests.
The origins of the cheeseburger are easy to track. It’s generally agreed that Lionel Sternberger, a teenager in Pasadena, California, was the first to put cheese on a hamburger while working at his father’s restaurant, The Rite Spot, in 1924. Why he added the cheese is contested, but Sternberger is still viewed as the cheeseburger’s inventor.
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Who gets credited for the hamburger, though, is vastly more complicated.
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One story connects the hamburger’s roots to Athens, Texas. There, it’s said that Fletcher Davis, fondly known as “Uncle Fletch,” served hamburgers at a stand. Its popularity fueled Athens residents to pool their funds and send Uncle Fletch and his hamburgers to the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Nexstar’s KETK reports. However, a lack of archival evidence pokes some holes in this tale.
Others point to New Haven, Connecticut. Louis Lassen, who owned the Louis’ Lunch, reportedly created the hamburger when a customer asked for a meal to go in 1900, according to Nexstar’s WTNH.
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“In an instant, Louis placed his own blend of ground steak trimmings between two slices of toast and sent the gentleman on his way,” the restaurant, which is still open today, explains on its website. Louis’ Lunch says it “continues to serve the original hamburger, just as it was first prepared in 1895” when the spot opened.
This Sept. 9, 2016, photo shows the exterior of Louis Lunch, a longtime eatery in New Haven, Conn. Louis was recognized by the Library of Congress as the U.S. birthplace of the hamburger. Burgers are made on a small gas grill and the restaurant does not serve ketchup. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz)
Though history – and Congressional records included in the Library of Congress – give New Haven and Lassen the hamburger-inventing crown over Athens’ Uncle Fletch, records show the hamburger was on the food scene even earlier.
Some 800 miles away, you’ll find Seymour, Wisconsin, the home of the Hamburger Hall of Fame.
As local officials explain, 15-year-old Charlie Nagreen was selling meatballs at the Outagamie County Fair in Seymour in 1885. A lack of sales and the recognition that fairgoers wanted something to eat on the go led Nagreen to smash the meatballs and put them between two pieces of bread.
Nagreen opted to call the concoction a hamburger. The name appeared to be in reference to an already popular food in the area, ground beefsteak, which got its own name from its connections to Hamburg, Germany. Nagreen earned his own similar name, “Hamburger Charlie.”
Charlie Nagreen, otherwise known as “Hamburger Charlie,” is immortalized with a statue in Seymour, Wisconsin, where he is said to have created the hamburger – a fact historians have disputed only slightly. (WFRV)
Unfortunately, while Seymour may have some weight in the fight, Christopher Carosa, who explored the history of the hamburger for his book, “Hamburger Dreams,” suggests another city may be the burger’s true home.
As legend has it, Charles and Frank Menches, brothers from Canton, Ohio, were at the Erie County Fair in 1885. They were serving sausage patties at the Hamburg, New York, festival, but ran out, Heather Williams of Juicy Burger Bar told Nexstar’s WIVB in 2019. The Menches tried to get more pork from the butcher but had to settle for ground beef.
Because they were in Hamburg, they decided to name their patty-between-two-buns invention the hamburger.
If it’s any consolation for Seymour, the Erie County Fair happened only a month before the Nagreen debuted his sandwich, Carosa told Nexstar’s WGN Radio in 2024.
