HAMBURGER HISTORY 2004-05-10 (1)

ROSEANNE HARPER

While sources may not agree on who created the hamburger, they do concur that it made its debut at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.

One story has it that a vendor on the midway began slapping meat patties onto slices of bread when he ran out of plates. Fair attendees, loving the result, told him to forget the plates.

Another version, however, gives credit to a Texan -- Fletcher Davis, a.k.a. Old Dave -- who, it is said, invented the hamburger at his lunch counter in Athens, Texas, before the turn of the last century.

Old Dave's innovative menu item was a simple meat patty placed between two slices of his homemade bread and topped with a dollop of mustard-flavored mayonnaise, sliced onion and cucumber pickle. His customers liked the then-nameless concoction so much they urged him to try selling it at the upcoming World's Fair. He took their advice and his stand became one of the most popular attractions on the midway.

The name? "Hamburger steak" was already a term being used at that time. It referred to a hunk of fried, ground beef, prepared in a way that was popular in Hamburg, Germany. So, what looked like a small hamburger steak between two slices of bread became simply a "hamburger."