Payette enterprise. (Payette, Canyon Co., Idaho) 1909-1935, 1923-10-25
CAME BY CHANCE
New Workers. Explanation OF
Origin of Ice Cream Soda.
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 life's safe improve
mentS
or 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 a milk
pump In the middle of every modern
fountain. With the milk pump has
come the urn and a demand for fresh
brewed 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 addi-
lions soda fountain is still soda
fountain and not restaurant, or
fruit stand, or coffee counter. These
have not interfered with its main
mission. 1t still does Its biggest
business In the sale of those original
American connections commonly
called soft drinks, remarks writer
In the New York Sun.
Not so long ago there was no such |
thing as an ice-c~eam soda. The /
pride of first-class fountain was not |
In the number Of Its strip pumps nor
In Its Jars of crushed fresh fruit
Rather was rank gagged by the num-
Der Of kinds Of mineral water kept
on draft Plain charged water was
not served out as vichy or settler or
anything else customer happened to
ask for.
1.-THE soda clerks of today don't
know any better, most of Them" said
m old-timer. "They think all car
donated water Is about the same
hing. II
why, one place on Broadway must
have had eight or ten mineral waters !
IN draft all the time. Yichy and | ,
xissingen, Kaiser and Settler, Deep
Rock, half dozen others They came |
n by the barrel, mostly from Sara
oga.
Every place else had them, too.
The older stores, the bar at the Hoff- !,
nan house, the Fifth Avenue hotel,
he Victoria, the Imperial, the Abe
larle. 1t was the regular thing to
nike a couple Of glasses Of mineral
'ater or soda, or even phosphate,
-hich was then rated as tonic In L
he morning.
This demand for an early drink
as the thing that led to the discov- q
~ of fce-cream Soda OF course,
claims that ice-cream :,
oda was invented down there, and 10
-ent so far as publicly to give Robert
reen credit for starting it.. They
ave him the credit after he was dead. til
ut they can hardly make a clear a,
ase, and hold TO the Eighth avenue =
arsion Of It's invention New York
as just as good a claim.
'The thing was entirely accidental.
arly In the morning a customer came n
to lower Eighth avenue drug store Te
I'd asked for a glass of soda. The -
'oprietor apologiZed because he had
, Ice, and offered a plate of ice he
cam instead sn
THAT was no substitute for the ~
Ing wanted. The customer wanted
da, and insisted that the Ice cream
put into 1t II there was no ice Dr
alable. That was done. The re- bo
1t was remarkable, and Ice cream
da has been spreading over the
untry ever since. De-
"Sundaes are a much later idea. 81
e sale Of them began, think, by 33
effort to evade In legal manner Ca
e old Sunday closing laws, when Ice =
,am parlors were not open. Drug
res were generally not closed, and pla
re Ice cream was camoufiaged and Io'
d as a 'sundae.' !
But nobody ever believed that sit Wa
6 at soda fountain would take -
TX as great popular diversion all
,r the United States. In less than Bee
2 generation that has happened =
nns chanOo