August 6th is Root Beer Float Day
Tuesday, August 6th is National Root Beer Float Day, a day to celebrate the delicious combination of vanilla ice cream and root beer. The credit of the invention for the root beer float goes to Frank J. Wisner of Cripple Creek Colorado.
In August of 1893 Wisner, who was a pharmacist, sold ice cream in his store, but one day his freezer broke, so he ran out of ice to keep his ice cream cold. Not wanting to lose his inventory and wanting to sell cold soda, be started putting the ice cream in the soda. The root beer float became an instant hit. At that time on Colorado it wasn’t called a root beer float, it was called a Black Cow, so named because he could see the Cow Mountains from his store window and noticed the snowy peaks looked like ice cream in dark soda.