Ice Cream Cones: The True Story

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The ice cream cone is said to have originated at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904. But that leaves out an important part of history: the story of the cone inventor.

The patent for cone-making was awarded to Italo Marchiony (1868-1954) in 1903. Marchiony was a street vendor on Wall Street where he sold lemon ices from a pushcart to Wall Street brokers and runners. He had been working on a cone-making device since 1896 and filed for a patent in 1902.

And there was the mystery: If 95 percent of the sources I found credited the invention of the ice cream cone to a fellow named Ernest Hamwi at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, how were they explaining Marchiony as patent holder? As it turned out, the lore simply omitted Marchiony.

The True Story of The First Ice Cream Cone

Thanks to an article written by Jane Marchiony Paretti, Marchiony’s daughter and published originally by the Hoboken Historical Society, we have the full and complete answer.

ice cream cone vendor

The story begins on Wall Street where Marchiony, a resident of Hoboken, worked as a pushcart vendor. (Marchiony arrived in this country as a “Marcioni” but he or the fellow on Ellis Island Americanized the name to Marchiony.)

Like many of his countrymen, Marchiony began selling ices from a pushcart. Some customers referred to these Italian vendors as “hokey pokey men,” which derived from the vendors’ cries of Ecco un poco—meaning “here’s a little.”

To present a customer with an individual serving, the men used small glass dishes, which were to be given back to the vendor. But many of the Wall Street traders wandered off with their cups, or the cups fell and broke in transit.  Marchiony was tired of the loss and breakage of the glasses, so he wanted to come up with an edible cup in which to serve the flavored ices.

Ice Cream Cone Inventor at Work

ice cream cone design

Beginning in 1896, Marchiony spent nights in the family kitchen, experimenting with waffle-making. He found that if he folded the waffles into a cone while they were still warm they retained their shape as they cooled.

At work, his new invention was a big hit—so much so that he realized he needed a way to produce cones more quickly. Hand-making them one at a time was laborious.

As Paretti writes in her article: “Father had a good head for mechanics as well as for business, so he adapted the design of the waffle iron to create a device into which batter could be poured and baked” in multiples. The mold he was working on allowed for cooking ten cones at a time. By hinging it in the middle, there was a way to open the device to remove the fragile cups from the mold. Marchiony was satisfied with his invention by 1902 and submitted the patent application. He received patent approval in 1903.

On Wall Street these sweet treats acquired the name “toots,” probably from tutti-frutti. (Marchiony may have sold some ices or ice cream with bits of nuts or fruit.)

Louisiana Purchase Exposition

waffle ice cream cones; istock

So fast forward to St. Louis in 1904. How did the legend grow that the ice cream cone began with a vendor at the Exposition?

Here we turn again to Jane Marchiony Paretti who has the answer:

Marchiony was in St. Louis as an exhibitor!

The legend, as it has been told, has been spun so that it became a story of a waffle vendor (Ernest Hamwi) who came to the rescue of an ice cream vendor who ran out of glass cups.

The true story is that Marchiony was there selling his ice cream. He could easily make up fresh batches of ice cream each night, but he couldn’t keep up with demand for the waffle cups. So this is where the truth almost connects with the legend. Instead of Hamwi having the idea for using his waffles, Marchiony turned to Hamwi, who was selling zalabis (a Syrian cookie that is like a thin waffle) and asked that Hamwi roll some of the waffles while warm so that Marchiony could use them as cones.

So there we have it: The first ice cream cones were actually sold from a pushcart on Wall Street, however, these sweet treats gained wide exposure through the St. Louis Exposition.

Other vendors at the fair began copying Marchiony, and people who enjoyed ice cream cones in St. Louis returned to their own communities with suggestions to their local ice cream stores as to a new way to sell ice cream.

Ice Cream Cone Inventor’s Later Life

After the Exposition, Italo Marchiony returned to Hoboken and

chocolate ice cream cone

established a cone-making factory. He also built up a fleet of street vendors who sold his ice cream cones. At one point, he had 45 street vendors out selling ice cream cones on the streets of Manhattan.

According to Paretti, Marchiony went on to create ice cream sandwiches. His factory made small cookies and sold them with ice cream inside.  The Wall Street brokers were said to find ice cream sandwiches to be more dignified to eat than ice cream cones.

Marchiony retired in 1938 and had a comfortable retirement until his death in 1954. His ice cream brand was ultimately acquired by Schrafft’s.

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23 thoughts on “Ice Cream Cones: The True Story”

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  6. You simply took the word of the man’s daughter leaving out years of patent disputes between both Marcione and his brother as well as dozens of others. This is the kind if BS internet “journalism” that spreads false truths. You should take this down or at least do the research and revise the article. Shameful.

  7. Hi Mike,
    I take reader comments very seriously. And I always intend to do proper research. I will take your comments seriously and look into it. If you have a particular name or story, I would appreciate it. You do seem angry enough that you think I’m a lost cause…I’m not, so give me a try. Kate

  8. As noted above, I re-examined my research on the patent on the ice cream cone. Marchiony held the patent, and I saw no claims that would have disputed that nor did the newspapers of the day write about anything. My offer to pursue any questions Mr. Erhardt had went unanswered. I expect he was upset about a single source dominating the article, but I only found that source because of the name specified on the patent.

  9. I,m curious about the bottom of a safety ice cream cone. My father claims to have come with the idea while working at the Sealtest plant in St. Louis. He and a friend dropped the reinforced idea in the suggestion box…and only received a pat on the back & told that they had revolutionized the ice cream cone. This happened in the early 1950’s. Know anything? [email protected]

  10. Thank you for posting…let me look into it. I’ll post what I learn in a few days. It’s always interesting! Kate

  11. I did not find the answer to exactly what you have asked about, but I did come up with some interesting information. It looks like the Safe-T-Cone was a cone what designed “with a Safe-T- ring and ribs on the cone… the ribs should have strengthened the cone, but the ring is interesting, as it seems designed to prevent drips. The ad I found from the Illinois Baking Corporation in Chicago gave me the most information…but I’ll also add a photo as Dairy Queen seemed to buy Safe-T-Cones and they were well labeled!

    Ad for cone

    And here’s the look of the Dairy Queen cone: Click here to view it.

    If there are readers who know more about this than I was able to find, please let me know!

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  20. Roland. Antonelli

    Like a lot of history it has no valid facts. Antonio Valvona from Manchester England was selling ice cream in partnership with Marchoni ,s cousin on rolled cones , registered in the Italian quarter of New York.he patented in New York a baking iron for wafer cups in 1901. Valvona was rolling sugar cones in England in 1896 fully documented . He learnt to roll cones from his relative Vacca in Brussels , Belgium in the early 1800’s. This is documented evidence not hearsay.
    The Vacca connection I only discovered this year 2022 . As a family making cones for 1010 years in Manchester I have always been searching for the truth . We will never know whether the cone for selling ice cream pre-dates Vacca.
    Roland Antonelli.

  21. Thank you so much for adding this history! You are so right. My site mainly focuses on U.S. history, but you are right that there should be a tip of the hat to those from other countries…thank you!

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