Dallas's Sammie Bert and the "Snow Cone" (1920)

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A check of "Sammie Bert" on Google shows nothing? The "snow cone" should  not
be forgotten in the annals of American food!
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>From the Dallas Morning News archive from NewsBank. Wikipedia is a little
off.
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_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_cone_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_cone)
A snow cone is a dessert item usually made of compacted shaved ice  flavored
with a brightly colored _sugary_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar)  syrup,
usually _fruit_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit) -flavored.  Variations
include the "stuffed" snow cone, which has a layer of soft-serve _vanilla_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla)  _ice cream_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream)   inside. Some are served with a spoon, and some are meant to be
eaten with the  hands like an _ice cream cone_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_cone) . The  popularity of snow cones remains concentrated heavily in
cities such as _Baltimore_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore) , _New
Orleans_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans) , and _Houston_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston) .
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History
In _1934_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934) , inventor  _Ernest  Hansen_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ernest_Hansen&action=edit)  patented
the first known "ice block shaver" in _New Orleans,  Louisiana_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans,_Louisiana) . He was inspired to create a more
refined and hygienic version of  the popular _Italian ice_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_ice)  sold from  push-carts in the city. His wife Mary created
many flavors of fresh syrups to  flavor his finely shaved artificial "snow".
"Snow balls" have been popular in  New Orleans ever since. Hansen continued
work at the original _Hansen's Sno-Bliz_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansen's_Sno-Bliz)  in  Uptown _New Orleans_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans)
 on Tchoupitoulas  Street through 2005, although his granddaughter, Ashley
Hansen, has taken over  much of the workload. Mrs. Hansen died in late 2005,
shortly after _Hurricane Katrina_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina)  and  Mr. Hansen passed away in March 2006.
"Snow balls" have grown in popularity worldwide, though outside of New
Orleans they are sometimes called "sno-cones".
Usually, the snow cones are sold at _stadiums_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadium)  and _coliseums_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coliseum) , and by
_ice  cream vans_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_van)  or by car
peddlers at _parks_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park) . In New Orleans, prior to
Hurricane Katrina, there were "snow ball stands" located in neighborhoods
throughout the city.
Snow cones are crushed either by hand or with specialized ice-crushing
machines.
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11 August 1951, Dallas Morning News, part 1, pg. 2:
<i>ONE ORDER FROM ALASKA</i>
<i>Sammie Bert Sells</i>
<i>World Snow Cones</i>
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Sammie Bert of Dallas, known as the snow cone king in international snow
cone circles, is literally about to sell snow to the Eskimos.
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Back in 1919, when Bert first appeared on the Fair Park Midway, he invented
a machine for electrically making short order snow cones. He still
manufactures  these snow-making machines on the Dallas Midway and sends them all over the
 world. Friday he had an order for one from a client in Alaska where most of
the  customers would be Eskimos.
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King Sammie has a natural businessman's reticence about revealing how many
snow cones he sells in a year. But he did say that he often has to use 1,500
pounds of ice daily to supply his snow cone concession at Fair Park.
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And he said his heavier caliber cone-making engines can take fifty pounds  of
ice and turn it into 200 cones full of syrup-flavored snow in forty  seconds.
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State Fair of Texas publicity department statisticians estimate that King
Sammie sold more than 1,000,000 snow cones during last year's fair.
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King Sammie was definitely not a king when he came to the Fair Park Midway
in 1919. He was fresh from service as a combat hospital corpsman in France with
 the 79th Division. He set up a small snow cone stand, shaving the ice
manually  with a carpenter-style plane.
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His patents on his electric snow-making machinery got him off to a good
start by 1920. As the senior concessionaire at Fair Park he now owns, in  addition
to the snow cones the $100,000 roller coaster, the Cotton Bowl skating  rink,
a Midway restaurant and the grounds concession for popcorn and  peanuts.
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King Sammie is a fan of his own products. Almost any of these 100-degree
evenings at the Midway, you may see the pleasant little man eating snow and
riding over the breezy peaks of his roller coaster.

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