--- title: Free Cone Day History: Who Invented Ice Cream Cones? description: Were they really invented at the 1904 World's Fair? Probably not canonical: https://time.com/4288576/ice-cream-cone-history/ author: Merrill Fabry article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-12T11:30:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:42.683Z article:section: History og:title: Free Cone Day History: Who Invented Ice Cream Cones? og:description: Were they really invented at the 1904 World's Fair? Probably not og:url: https://time.com/4288576/ice-cream-cone-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt13ea1f894704f4d5/69888eb00b72e3a7f26e8e95/ice-cream.jpeg?branch=production&width=615&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 615 og:image:height: 346 og:image:alt: Boy with ice-cream cone og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Free Cone Day History: Who Invented Ice Cream Cones? twitter:description: Were they really invented at the 1904 World's Fair? Probably not twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt13ea1f894704f4d5/69888eb00b72e3a7f26e8e95/ice-cream.jpeg?branch=production&width=615&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Murky History of the Ice Cream Cone > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Should I Drink Smoothies? [Watch (HLS stream): Should I Drink Smoothies?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/yaJvnmtl.m3u8) (1:40)  _Published 2015-04-01. Are fruit smoothies good for you? Here's why 3 out of 5 experts said yes._  by [Merrill Fabry](https://time.com/author/merrill-fabry/)  ## Merrill Fabry Apr 12, 2016 11:30 AM UTC  Boy holding ice-cream cone, circa 1930s Boy holding ice-cream cone, circa 1930s H. Armstrong Roberts—Retrofile/Getty Images  by [Merrill Fabry](https://time.com/author/merrill-fabry/)  ## Merrill Fabry Apr 12, 2016 11:30 AM UTC Here’s something to ponder if you happen to be waiting in line for Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day on Tuesday: Where do ice cream cones come from? The exact origin of the combination of an edible wafer or waffle, the cone shape and the ice cream is unclear. Edible wafers date back centuries, and they were long served alongside ice cream as an accompaniment. The most popular cone invention stories locate ice cream cones at the 1904 World’s Fair, but they were almost certainly invented before that date and the actual story of who first used a rolled wafer to serve ice cream is a murky story. An 1807 [etching](https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-2009-291) of the Parisian Café Frascati holds an early clue. The café was known for serving ice cream, and the lower right corner of the image shows a woman licking something out of a hand held container, which[ ice cream historian](https://books.google.com/books?id=jbi6BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA350&lpg=PA350&dq=1807+debucourt+frascati+ice+cream&source=bl&ots=F3vHGsKH1H&sig=cMqDwtClP%5FK%5FfcE%5FklU%5FO56Mo4I&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidjL-et4fMAhUEwj4KHTTMA%5FEQ6AEIOjAG#v=onepage&q=1807%20debucourt%20frascati%20ice%20cream&f=false) Robin Weir writes is the “first pictorial evidence for ice cream cones.” Almost 40 years later, Charles Francatelli’s 1846 book _Modern Cook_ described how to make “wafer-_gauffres_” filled with “filbert-cream-ice” to [garnish](http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433056931235;view=1up;seq=462) a molded desert called “Iced Pudding a la Duchess of Kent.” (His “Iced Pudding a la Chesterfield” had a similar finish of ice-cream-filled wafer cones.) The accompanying illustration clearly showed the cone shape, and his _gauffres_ recipe described [shaping](http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433056931235;view=1up;seq=431) still-warm wafers into “small cornucopiae” before they cooled and became brittle, but these still aren’t quite the handheld cones of your youth, as they were intended mostly as a garnish. Towards the end of the century, Agnes B. Marshall wrote numerous cookbooks, including ones specifically about iced deserts, and this time the filled cone took center plate. Her 1887 _Cookery Book_ included a recipe for “[Cornets with Cream](https://books.google.com/books?id=8cFQAQAAIAAJ&dq=inauthor%3A%22Agnes+B.+Marshall%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=cornets)” that included the [instruction](http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31822031037997?urlappend=%3Bseq=417) that the cornets could “be filled with any cream or water ice,” and her 1894 book _Fancy Ices_ [detailed](https://books.google.com/books?id=lpOqTUucwhUC&pg=PA287&lpg=PA287&dq=marshall+fancy+ices&source=bl&ots=ZccKm-aj69&sig=KvtcyHKHkeXk1kvrAoLEYTWu7Ns&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwips4mti4fMAhXKPz4KHYwHAhMQ6AEInwEwGA#v=onepage&q=marshall%20fancy%20ices&f=false) further recipes for cornets filled with ice creams—but, while they were a step closer to the current incarnation of the ice cream cone, they were still elegant deserts meant to be put on a plate and eaten with utensils. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) In the second half of the 19th century, ice cream bought outside the home was [served](https://books.google.com/books?id=GCv8bPNMTNUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Robin+Weir%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjN4%5F3W5%5FXLAhWKKCYKHdFTATUQ6AEIIzAB#v=snippet&q=1807&f=false) in a small glass container, called a “penny lick” for the price. You would lick the ice cream out of the glass and return it to the vendor to wash and reuse. This practice wasn’t necessarily sanitary, and it could cause delays if too many people wanted ice cream at the same time. The solution: an edible container. Italo Marchiony, who later claimed he had been making edible cups to serve ice cream in New York City since 1896, [filed a patent](http://www.google.com/patents/US746971) in 1903 for his own ice-cream-cup-making machine. The mold’s shape is something more akin to a cup than a cone, as was the “apparatus for baking biscuit-cups for ice-cream” that Antonio Valvona of Manchester, England had [patented](http://www.google.com/patents/US701776) a year before. Anne Funderburg’s history of ice cream [describes](https://books.google.com/books?id=rLVa2zMvCiUC&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq=Anne+Cooper+Funderburg,+author+of+%22Chocolate,+Strawberry+and+Vanilla:+A+History+of+American+Ice+Cream&source=bl&ots=lYVYdwc5Gv&sig=Tp1bzSscegMnW7nku2qwYSN6ON4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiG0pHGwvXLAhUCwj4KHdqgA%5FcQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=cone&f=false) seven origin myths for the ice cream cone, starting with the most common 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair story: that Ernest Hamwi, an immigrant from Syria, was [making zalabia,](https://books.google.com/books?id=9OEmdcwYhfEC&pg=PA157&dq=historian+ice+cream+cone&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHxb6l2%5FXLAhXLMyYKHatzDOUQ6AEISTAI#v=onepage&q=hamwi&f=false) a wafer dessert, next to an ice cream stand. Hamwi suggested the combination, which caught on. Hamwi continued to work in the business of ice cream cones, eventually opening the Missouri Cone Company. The International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers named him the official creator of the ice cream cone in the 1950s. Still, [other](https://books.google.com/books?id=fjxfkqnSFiQC&q=ice+cream+cone#v=snippet&q=ice%20cream%20cone&f=false) stories proliferated, including ones claiming Abe Doumar of Lebanon, Nick and Albert Kabbaz of Syria, David Avayou from Turkey, or Frank and Charles Menches of Ohio gave Hamwi the idea or invented the cone themselves. There’s no contemporary evidence to support any of the World’s Fair stories over another. It remains unclear exactly which invention story is _the_ true story. But, while the ice cream cone was probably not first invented at the 1904 World’s Fair, the fair did serve to popularize the cone as container, and the stories about the Fair do provide an early example of the ice cream cone recognizable for both its modern form and function. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4288576/ice-cream-cone-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4288576/ice-cream-cone-history/"},"headline":"The Murky History of the Ice Cream Cone","datePublished":"2016-04-12T11:30:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:47:42.683Z","description":"Were they really invented at the 1904 World's Fair? 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