Was the root beer float invented in Colorado?

DENVER ( KDVR ) — The root beer float, known by some as the “black cow,” was first crafted by a miner in the Colorado mountains — according to legend, that is.

A close look at historical records shows that the story might not be true.

Researchers at History Colorado searched far and wide and found that the man who was credited with inventing the float in the Colorado mountains was actually not here when the story allegedly took place.

Legend: Snow-capped mountains inspired the first root beer float

According to National Day Calendar, Frank J. Wisner, the owner of the Cripple Creek Cow Mountain Gold Mining Company and Cripple Creek Brewing, is credited with inventing the root beer float while at a mining camp.

A few years ago, Gov. Jared Polis posted about the invention and said Wisner invented it on Aug. 19, 1893. That night, according to National Day Calendar, Wisner was looking out the window thinking about the line of soda waters that he was producing for the community in Cripple Creek.

“The full moon that night shined on the snow-capped Cow Mountain and reminded him of a scoop of vanilla ice cream. He hurried back to his bar and scooped a spoonful of ice cream into the children’s favorite flavor of soda, Myers Avenue Red Root Beer,” the National Day Calendar website said .

He tried it and liked it, so Wisner served it the next day and it was an immediate hit, according to the National Day Calendar and numerous other sources. He initially called it a “Black Cow Mountain,” but the local kids shortened it to “Black Cow,” according to legend.

Historical records: He was absent from his invention

History Colorado’s Dr. Rachael Storm did some digging into the story. After a thorough search of Cripple Creek historical records, census data, newspapers, Ancestry.com records and more, Storm told FOX31 that she found that Wisner was not actually in Colorado, nor did he own a brewery in Colorado when he supposedly crafted the invention. In fact, he was a real estate agent in Chicago.

“He occasionally traveled to Colorado starting in around 1888, looking for mines to invest in, but he never really lived here. And for about 10 years, there are no records of him even being in the state. And that was during the time he was said to have created the root beer float,” Storm said in a phone interview. “So, I don’t have any records of him at all being in Colorado between 1888 and 1896.”

The first record of Wisner in Colorado that Storm found was a news article from 1888 about voting, which stated that Wisner was at a temporary housing place in Denver and was unable to vote, and it said he had “gone east.”

The next record of him pops up in the spring of 1896 when Wisner bought three mining claims on the south slope of Cow Mountain, east of Cripple Creek. Six months later, he formed the Cripple Creek Cow Mountain Gold Mining Company, which Storm believes he left with two locals to operate when he was not there.

Wisner was not found in Cripple Creek city directories in the 1890s or 1900, but Storm found records of several people in Chicago during that period with the same name. The Frank J. Wisner in question was recorded in Chicago for the 1900, 1910 and 1920 censuses, and his death was recorded in 1936.

Colorado-born legend popular in the Midwest – why?

FOX31 also found that there was no Cripple Creek Brewing Company in Colorado.

Sanborn maps, which were created at the time to analyze fire risk, mapped out cities with details about each building and what they were for. A Sanborn map from 1883 showed nothing about a Cripple Creek Brewing Company.

There were two other breweries in Cripple Creek, the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company and Milwaukee Brewing.

There was, however, a Cripple Creek Brewing Company based in Naperville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, however, that came about 100 years after Wisner was said to be in Cripple Creek. That company crafted Myers Avenue Red Root Beer, which was said to be used for Wisner’s Black Cow, and there is a Myers Avenue in Cripple Creek.

The Minnesota Museum of the Mississippi has a blog about American root beer, on which it posted reviews of different root beers in the early 2000s. After a review of the Myers Avenue Red Root Beer, the blogger posted an email letter from Mike Lynn , the president of the Cripple Creek Cow Mountain Gold Mining Company in Naperville, Illinois.

In the letter, Lynn claimed that his great grand uncle Frank J. Wisner ran a mining operation in Cripple Creek in the 1890s. Lynn described Wisner as a “flim flam man,” and said the story was passed down through generations of his family.

This could explain why the term “black cow” as it relates to non-alcoholic beverages is searched for much more in the Midwest and Great Lakes region than in Colorado. Here is Google Trends data for the term from 2012-2022:

Storm said she believes Wisner may have told the tale when he returned to Illinois, and the people there continued the tale as a classic Wild West story.

Soda floats in Cripple Creek

While there wasn’t a record of Wisner inventing the root beer float, Storm said the cool refreshing treat was recorded in Cripple Creek.

According to records, the place to go for a soda float at the time was the Palace Pharmacy, located on the first floor of the Palace Hotel. The hotel, located at the corner of 2nd Street and Bennett Avenue, still stands today.

Storm said the pharmacy began operating 24 hours a day in 1885, likely to accommodate miners’ schedules. A nickel would buy a glass of soda, or a dime would buy a glass of soda with ice cream.

Soda fountains were popular at pharmacies at the time. This photo from History Colorado shows the soda fountain at Prowitt’s Masonic Temple Pharmacy on 16th Street in Denver around 1900.

So, how was the root beer float invented?

The invention of root beer itself is generally credited to pharmacist Charles E. Hires , according to Philadelphia Magazine. Storm explained that it was around the days when several other soft drinks were invented as pharmacists believed that carbonation was healthy, and it helped people with stomach issues.

Pharmacists like Hires began using roots and other natural flavors along with syrups and creams to sweeten the medicinal drinks.

“It’s unclear where the root beer floats came from, but really ice cream sodas had been around about 20 years by the time Wisner was said to have created his,” Storm said.

In her research, Storm found that a Philadelphia man, Robert Green, may have accidentally created the ice cream soda concept. Locals were celebrating the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia, and Storm said Green was serving cream sodas there.

According to the story Green told within a few years of it happening, he had run out of cream and went to a fellow vendor who was selling ice cream and asked for some. He was going to melt it before serving, but customers were eager for a refreshing treat, so he let the ice cream float in the soda while still frozen and thus the float was born.

When he died, the story was included in his obituary. That being said, there are also multiple versions of Green’s story.

Many of the sources that different publications cite about the root beer float lead to defunct links and many of the published stories have very similar wordings of the story. This leads Storm to believe the story may be widely accepted and popularized because it was published in the early days of the internet, and the story was not checked down the line.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver.