1881 - Two Rivers, Wisconsin:

1881 - Two Rivers, Wisconsin:

Two Rivers, Wisconsin claims that the first ice cream sundae was served by accident in 1881. Druggist Edward Berners (1863-1939), owner of Ed Berners' Ice Cream Parlor was asked by a George Hallauer asked for a ice cream soda. Because it was Sunday, the Sabbath, Mr. Berners compromised and put ice cream in a dish and poured the chocolate syrup on top (chocolate syrup was only used for making flavored ice cream sodas at the time). Ed Berners sampled the dish and liked it enough to begin featuring "ice cream with syrup" in his shop for the same price as a dish of ice cream. This ice cream concoction cost a nickel, and soon everybody wanted some.

The only reference to support Two Rivers' claim is a 1929 Two Rivers Reporter newspaperinterview by Seymour Althen in which Edward Berners recounts his 40-year-old recollection of how the sundae came about.

"One night, Hallauer dropped in and ordered a dish of ice cream. As I was serving it, he spied a bottle of chocolate syrup on the back bar, which I used for making sodas. 'Why don't you put some of that chocolate on the ice cream?'" he asked.

"'You don't want to ruin the flavor of the ice cream,' I protested, but Hallauer answered 'I'll try anything once,' and I poured on the chocolate. Hallauer liked it, and the ice cream sundae was born."

Here is a question: Wisconsin birth records indicate Edward Berners was only 18 years old in 1881. It was unlikely than an 18 year old would have been the owner of a ice cream parlor.

Ed Berners' obituary in the La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press newspaper on Sunday Morning, July 2, 1939 reads:

Fond du Lac, wis - (AP) - E. C. Berner, 76, of Two Rivers, who claimed to be the originator of the ice cream sundae, died Saturday at the home of a sister, Mrs. Albert Pilon, where he had lived for the last two months.

Edward Berners closed his ice cream parlor in 1927. Today, the Washington House Hotel Museum in Two Rivers includes a replica of Ed Berner's ice cream parlor.

The Wisconsin State Historical Society recognizes Two Rivers, Wisconsin as the birthplace of the sundae and in 1973 erected a historical marker in Two Rivers Central Memorial Park that reads:

ICE CREAM SUNDAE - In 1881, George Hallauer asked Edward C. Berner, the owner of a soda fountain at 1404 - 15th Street, to top a dish of ice cream with chocolate sauce, hitherto used only for ice cream sodas. The concoction cost a nickel and soon became very popular, but was sold only on Sundays. One day a ten year old girl insisted she have a dish of ice cream "with that stuff on top," saying they could "pretend it was Sunday." After that, the confection was sold every day in many flavors. It lost its Sunday only association, to be called ICE CREAM SUNDAE when a glassware salesman placed an order with his company for the long canoe-shaped dishes in which it was served, as "Sundae dishes."

 

In 2006, the town of Two Rivers responded to Ithaca with a resolution demanding that Ithace "cease and desist from it claim.