Ice Cream Cone (NYHT, 29 July 1954)

[Baker, John]

        There seems to be broad agreement on web sites that the ice cream
cone was independently re-invented and popularized at the St. Louis
Exposition in 1904, although Hamwi is only the most prominent of several
claimants for the credit.

        The OED takes "ice cream cone" back only to 1920.  From 1908,
referring to events of 1906:

        >>Herman Armbruster, who superintended the electrical construction
for the electric company . . . testifies that the work was done during June
and July, 1906. . . . "We put the sign on two buildings, refreshment stands,
pagodas, sign on the main stand, dancing pavilion, bridge, theater (interior
and exterior), porch around the old building, additional lights in the
kitchen and rear porch on the rear building, penny arcade, shooting gallery,
bowling alley and pool, rough house, house of trouble, fun factory, cave of
the winds, roller coaster, photograph gallery, Japanese bowling alley, three
ice cream cone stands, throwing-the-ring stand, knock-the-baby-down stand,
the outhouses, wiring for 14 arcs in and around the park, putting up buffet
sign on porch around old building, theater sign on theater, signs on the
penny arcades, shooting gallery, bowling alley, house of trouble, fun
factory, etc."<<

R. Haas Electric & Manufacturing Co. v. Springfield Amusement Park Col, 236
Ill. 452, 456, 86 N.E. 248, 250 (1908).  Mr. Armbruster obviously repeated
himself on some of the items he enumerated.  I have to admit that I'm
particularly intrigued by the house of trouble and the knock-the-baby-down
stand, and some of the other amusement park facilities are also unfamiliar
to me.

John Baker