Our neighbor Rick Smith (Shadow Park North) put this in to share with you:
And now we know the rest of the story…
Clint Murchinson Sets Hamburger Record Straight
Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas invented the hamburger sometime in the late 1870s.
Davis was a potter by trade and had moved to Athens in the 1880s. When the pottery business slowed Davis opened a small lunch counter across from the courthouse and began selling the sandwiches there.
Made from Hamburg style beef served on a hot buttered bun with pickles and onions with a generous smear of yellow mustard the sandwiches were an instant hit. Hamburg beef had been around forever and no doubt every beef eating culture had some sort of ground leftovers but the name Hamburg stuck. Davis or Uncle Fletcher or Ole Dave as he was known in Athens coined the term Hamburger for the new sandwich.
In 1904 the World’s Fair was held in St.Louis Davis’s home town. He loaded up his cart and sold Hamburgers on the Midway and made a ton of money. A New York Times reporter interviewed him and asked him about the fried potatoes he served on the side with a tomato based vinegar flavored sauce that people were dipping them in. Fletcher responded that a friend of his over in Paris gave him the recipe. The reporter called them French Fries not knowing that Fletcher meant Paris, Texas not Paris, France.
This whole story would probably never have been told had it not been for the late Clint Murchison Jr., the founder of the Dallas Cowboys and an Athens, Texas native. The mild mannered Murchison is said to have flown into a rage when he read a newspaper article proclaiming the demolition of the birthplace of the hamburger some place up in Connecticut. Murchison is quoted as saying: “Next thing you know them damn Yankees will be claiming they invented chili!”
