Hamburgers, a historical past: How a small Wisconsin city received credit score for start of the burger

Lower than a half-hour west of Lambeau Discipline, the place the Inexperienced Bay Packers play, Charlie Nagreen’s identify is equally properly often called these of legends like Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr and Brett Favre.

In downtown Seymour, a 14-foot statue of Nagreen towers above Depot Road. However that’s not a soccer he’s holding in his left hand — it’s a hamburger. By most accounts, Nagreen made his mark on historical past as the primary individual to promote a easy sandwich of a floor beef patty, onions and pickle between two slices of bread.

Lately, based on the U.S. Division of Agriculture, Individuals eat about 50 billion burgers annually. And whereas hotter climate has dwelling cooks firing up their grills for Memorial Day weekend, few know the common-or-garden hamburger’s origins are proper right here within the Midwest.

In the summertime of 1885, Charlie Nagreen was simply 15 years previous when he drove his ox cart 24 miles — from Hortonville to Seymour — to erect a wood stand on the Outagamie County Honest. From that stall, he meant to promote meatballs on sticks to fairgoers. However the meatballs weren’t promoting very properly; individuals mentioned they have been too tough to eat on the go. The youthful entrepreneur then determined to smash the meatballs into patties and add bread, making them way more handy to munch on whereas shifting from exhibit to exhibit.

The hamburger was born.

“There’s no want to look, there’s no must roam. You’re in Seymour. It’s the hamburger’s dwelling,” Invoice Collar, president of the Seymour Neighborhood Historic Society, says with delight. A visit to Seymour, about 4 hours north of Chicago, affords guests an intriguing museum, a lot of it dedicated to hamburgers. Prime that off with Burger Fest every August, plus a number of taverns at which to take pleasure in a beer and a burger, and also you’ve received an ideal summer time escape.

Seymour isn’t the one city that lays declare to inventing the hamburger. However historical past favors the Wisconsin burg, because it’s properly documented that Nagreen, who was identified for many years as “Hamburger Charlie,” bought his first burgers in 1885, a minimum of a couple of years earlier than they appeared elsewhere.

Wearing a white shirt, pants, apron and hat, with pink suspenders and tie, Charlie was a preferred fixture at county gala’s in northeast Wisconsin. He peddled his burgers in Seymour for 66 years, till 1950, the summer time earlier than he died.

For years, locals together with Collar have donned the identical outfit to mingle with guests to this city of three,200 and recite Nagreen’s well-known chant.

“Hamburger, hamburger, hamburger scorching. With an onion within the center and a pickle on prime. Makes your lips go flippity-flop. Come on over, strive an order. Fried in butter, hearken to it sputter,” he would start, then add, “It’s a giant pat of beef packed in a bun. And you’ll eat it on the run.”

Friends to the Seymour Neighborhood Museum (133 Depot St., Seymour; 920-833-9835; seymourhistory.org) are sometimes greeted by Collar, who’s solely too completely happy to share the historical past of the hamburger, from its nineteenth century roots to modern-day kitsch.

Museum-goers discover themselves surrounded by glass instances stuffed with Nagreen artifacts, and hamburger memorabilia from the gathering of Jeffrey Tennyson, an artist and creator of “Hamburger Heaven: The Illustrated Historical past of the Hamburger.”

“By no means thoughts apple pie. Overlook about scorching canine,” he wrote within the preface to his guide. “The hamburger is our all-time favourite meals.”

When Tennyson died in 2006, he left his assortment to the Seymour museum. As The New York Occasions famous, it included “hamburger juggling units, hamburger teapots, hamburger cookie jars and hamburger salt-and-pepper shakers, together with the predictable posters and pictures of hamburgers.” Roughly 500 to 600 of his practically 2,000 mementos are on show at any given time.

The record of things goes on and on. There’s a hamburger-shaped, push-button phone — “it really works,” Collar notes — and an area craftsman’s present to the museum: a hand-sculpted wood whopper of a cheeseburger. Practically a foot in diameter, it’s replete with lettuce, tomato and mayo, all realistically carved and painted.

Half a block from the museum is the statue of Hamburger Charlie. Simply throughout the road, topped with an enormous burger, is the precise grill used to cook dinner the world’s largest hamburger on the 2001 Burger Fest. Rectangular in form, it weighs 8,266 kilos.

A 2007 proclamation from the Wisconsin legislature deemed Seymour the “authentic dwelling of the hamburger.” One yr earlier, the city pleaded its case in a mock trial destined to find out which American group deserved these bragging rights.

The trial was held on the infield of a minor-league baseball park in Akron, Ohio, one of many cities claiming it had invented the hamburger. New Haven, Connecticut; Athens, Texas; and, in fact, Seymour introduced proof earlier than a retired choose and a mock jury.

“They deliberated for about 20 or half-hour and it was a hung jury. They might not decide,” says Collar, who appeared on the trial dressed as Hamburger Charlie.

“They determined to show it over to the Web and have a vote,” he continues. “Seymour received the vote overwhelmingly.”

Whereas the museum is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day (and different instances by appointment), Seymour actually sizzles throughout Burger Fest (920-833-6688; homeofthehamburger.org) every summer time. All of the fixings will beckon Aug. 12-14, with actions together with a hot-air balloon launch, a 5K “bun run,” a giant parade and — what else? — a burger-eating contest. In an ode to a preferred condiment, visitors may check their athletic expertise on the “ketchup slide,” a protracted sheet of plastic coated with a combination of ketchup and water.

“The present report is (a slide of) 220 ft,” Collar says.

The native historian additionally identified that, for the pageant, the “genuine Charlie hamburger,” ready merely with onions and pickle, is served.

That Charlie Burger is on the menu year-round at Foreman’s Bar and Grill (239 N. Primary St., Seymour; 920-504-4080). Nevertheless, in an ode to one among Wisconsin’s best-known merchandise, a slice of American cheese is added. It’s served with a facet of fries for $10. Collar says in 1855, Nagreen bought his burger for 10 cents, however with out the fries.

Between bites at Foreman’s, Collar continues to recite extra of what he calls “all types of proof” that Seymour is justifiably primary in hamburgers, making it unlikely wherever else can be stealing the burger king’s crown.

To make an appointment to go to the museum, name Invoice Collar at 920-833-6064. Whereas admission is free, a donation of $5 per household is inspired.

Jay Jones is a contract author.