The Inventor of the Ice Cream Cone is. . .

Who knows? Unfortunately, a potentially patentable item--that will likely never fade away--has no named inventor. There are famous inventors for everything under the sun: the Pez dispenser (Oskar Uxa to assignor Eduard Haas), the drinking straw (Marvin C. Stone), the peach (Luther Burbank) and the Chia Pet (Ron Manoah). But all that has been reported about the ice cream cone is an old story. In 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, an ice cream vendor named Charles Menches brought his date some flowers and an ice cream sandwich and she couldn't hold both at once. She used the cookie wafer to help keep the ice cream from dripping on her dress. Alas, the first official ice cream cone. It was only a few days later that Abe Doumar, a salesman from New Jersey, told another vendor that he could charge more money and save on dishes with the idea. Although the story is documented, the woman's name remains unknown to this day. This is one mother of invention who will never get to reap the rewards for ingenuity and quick thinking on her feet.