Charlie flattened meatball and history was made
KAREN HERZOG
Charlie flattened meatball and history was made
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Seymour residents love to retell the story of the hamburger’s birth.
And the Web site, www.homeofthehamburger.org, relishes every greasy detail.
In 1885, the story goes, 15-year-old Charlie Nagreen traveled to Seymour by ox cart from Hortonville, 20 miles to the south, to start his “ground beef and onion career” selling meatballs.
He figured folks would be hungry after walking around to see the Outagamie County Fair’s agricultural exhibits, and meatballs were easy to prepare. What he didn’t realize was that people would want to keep moving and not take time to stop for a plateful.
Nagreen wasn’t about to give up. He smashed several meatballs between two slices of bread, along with onions, to create a mobile meal. He called it a hamburger after the German city of Hamburg, where ground-up beefsteak was popular.
(Many German immigrants lived in the Hortonville area where Nagreen grew up, and the astute young salesman figured a recognizable name would help sell his creation.)
“Hamburger, hamburger, hamburger hot,” he’d chant to potential customers. “With an onion in the middle and a pickle on top. Makes your lips go flippity-flop. Come on in, try one order. Fried in butter, listen to it sputter.”
For the next 65 years, Nagreen returned to sell his hamburgers at the Seymour fair, along with other fairs on his summer circuit, including those in Shawano, Green Bay, Weyauwega, Oshkosh and New London.
— Karen Herzog
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