Licking Valley courier., 1922-10-19
CAME BY CHANCE
New Workers. Explanation Of
Origin of Ice Cream Soda.
1"',. = Ill ="
Customer Who Insisted on Cooling
Drink Credited With the Invention
Of the Popular Beverage.

This is the day and generation of
the soda-fountain feeders With pro-
hibition has come the rapid rise Of
the sandwich section of the marble
bar, the lunch that Is quick but not
free. The soda fountain has covered
the country along with the car, the
monograph and the film. They have
all been accepted, 1t seems, as among
the greatest of llfe's safe improve
ments.
OF the whole lot, the Soda foun-
tain has shown the greatest recent
change. An interesting sequel to the
eighteenth amendment Is a definite
demand for the installation Of milk
pump In the middle Of every modern
fountain. With the milk pump has
come the urn and demand for fresh
breHed coffee, for fresh orange juice,
and for stacks of assorted sand
wiches. The latest soda fountain has
more attachments than an automo-
bile.
But despite all these minor addl-
tlons a soda fountain Is still soda
fountain and not restaurant, or a
fruit stand, or a coffee counter. These
have not interfered with its main
mission. 1t still does its biggest
business In the sale of those original
American concoctions commonly
called soft drinks, remarks writer
in the New York Sun.
Not so long ago there was no such
thing as an ice-cream soda. The
pride Of first-class fountain was not
In the number of its slrup pumps nor
In its Jars of crushed fresh fruit.
Rather was rank gauged by the num-
Der Of kinds of mineral water lsept
on draft. Plain charged water was
not served out as vichy or seltzer or
anything else customer happened to
ask for.
'The soda clerks of today don't
know any better, most Of them" said
an old-timer. "They think all car
donated water is about the same
thing.
"Why, one place on Broadway must
have had eight or ten mineral waters
on draft all the time. Vichy and
Klssingen, Kaiser and Seltzer, Deep
Rock, half a dozen others. They came
in by the barrel, mostly from Sara
toga.
'Eyery place else had, then, too.
The older stores, the bar at the Hof'
man house, the Fifth Avenre hotel,
the Victoria, the Imperial, the Abe
marie. It was the regular thing to
take a couple Of glasses Of mineral
water or soda, or even phosphate,
which was then rated as tonic, in
the morning.
"Thls demand for an early drink
was the thing that led to the dlscov-
cry Of ice-cream soda. OF course,
Philadelphia claims that ice-cream
soda was invented down there, and
went so far as publicly to give Robert
Green credit for starting 1t. They
gave him the credit after he was dead
But they can hardly make a clear
case and l hold to the Eighth avenue
version of its invention. New York
has just as good a claim.
''The thing was entirely accidental.
Early In the morning a customer came
into lower Eighth avenue drug store
and asked for a glass Of soda. The
proprietor apologlzed because he had
no ice, and offered a plate Of ice
cream instead.
"That was no substitute for the
thing wanted. The customer wanted
soda, and Insisted that the ice cream
be put into It II there was no ice
available. That was done. The re
suit was remarkable, and Ice cream
soda has been spreading over the
country ever since.
"Sundaes are much later Idea
The sale Of them began, think, by
an effort to evade in legal manner
the old Sunday closing laws, when lct
cream parlors were not open. Drul
stores were generally not closed, ant
here ice cream was camounaged an(
sold as a 'sundae.'
'But nobody ever believed that sit
ting at soda fountain would taxi
rank as a great popular diversion al
over the United States. In less thai
one generation that has happened
Times change"