🔬 Myth check
Was the Root Beer Float Really Invented in 1893?
A moonlit mountain, a mining town and a scoop of vanilla in a glass of root beer. It is a great story. Colorado's own state history museum says that is all it is.
By Americanized · Edited by JP Lambiase · October 18, 2026
Probably not, or at least nobody can show it. The story goes that Frank J. Wisner dropped ice cream into root beer in Cripple Creek, Colorado, in 1893 and named it a Black Cow after Cow Mountain. History Colorado curator Rachael Storm found no proof and calls it a myth. The earliest printed root beer float found so far is a 1903 Iowa ad.
The story
The story goes like this. In 1893 Frank J. Wisner, a wandering entrepreneur with mining claims on Cow Mountain near Cripple Creek, looked up at its snowy peak and saw ice cream floating on soda. He put vanilla ice cream in root beer and called it a Black Cow, which is still a nickname for the float.
It has friends in high places. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has repeated the tale on social media around August 19, its supposed anniversary, including a 2021 post crediting Wisner, The Gazette reported in 2025. History writer Linda Wommack, whose great-great-uncle set off Cripple Creek's gold rush, still believes it.
What History Colorado found
Rachael Storm, History Colorado's curator of business and industry, went looking. She did find Wisner's mining claims on Cow Mountain, but she could not place him at any brewery, and the Cripple Creek Bottling Works founded in 1893 bottled beer, not soda.
Census records put Wisner in Chicago by 1900 and through his death in 1936, The Gazette reports, and his mining venture appears to have failed. Storm told The Denver Gazette the tale is "not a lie, but a myth."
Why the story spread
The details seem to come from Chicago, not Colorado. Storm found a letter from the head of a root beer maker in a Chicago suburb that repeats the mountain story as family lore, according to The Denver Gazette. CooksInfo traces the exact date, August 19, 1893, and the original name "Black Cow Mountain" to press releases from the Cripple Creek Brewing Company of Naperville, Illinois.
A vivid origin, a specific date and a governor's posts did the rest. Storm suspects the float is older than Wisner's date, though she says the documents to prove it are lacking.
What the paper trail does show
Ice cream in soda was already well known by 1893. The Franklin Fountain's history credits Robert M. Green's soda stand at the Franklin Institute's 1874 celebration in Philadelphia with popularizing the ice cream soda, though Green himself said he hit on the idea before the fair.
The root beer version shows up later in print. Word researcher Barry Popik's earliest citation is an August 7, 1903, ad in the Ottumwa, Iowa, Daily Courier for a "Root Beer Cream Float," followed by "Root Beer Float, 5c." in a Trenton, New Jersey, paper in 1906. His earliest "black cow" for root beer poured over vanilla ice cream dates from 1929.
Who first put a scoop in root beer is unknown. Our root beer float uses frosted mugs, two big scoops and a slow pour; made with Philadelphia-style vanilla it comes out cleaner and foamier. It is a natural for the Fourth of July, and the rest of our scoops are in the ice cream hub.
Questions people ask
Why is a root beer float called a Black Cow?
The Wisner story says it was named for Cow Mountain, but that is part of the unproven tale. Barry Popik finds "black cow" used for root beer over vanilla ice cream by 1929, and some 1930s uses mean root beer with milk or cream instead.
Did Frank Wisner really live in Cripple Creek?
He held mining claims on Cow Mountain, which History Colorado's Rachael Storm confirmed. How long he lived in Colorado is unclear; census records place him in Chicago by 1900, where he sold real estate.
Who invented the ice cream soda?
Robert M. Green is usually credited, from his stand in Philadelphia in 1874. The popular version says he ran out of cream and borrowed ice cream from a neighboring vendor; Green's own account, the Franklin Fountain notes, says he found the combination before the fair.
Parts of this history are disputed. Where sources disagree, we say so.
Sources
- Seth Boster, "Was the root beer float invented in Colorado?", The Denver Gazette, June 20, 2025 (updated July 10, 2025)
- Seth Boster, "Was the root beer float invented in Cripple Creek?", The Gazette (Colorado Springs), July 28, 2025
- The Franklin Fountain, "A Treatise"
- Barry Popik, "Root Beer Float or Ice Cream Float," The Big Apple
- Barry Popik, "Black Cow or Brown Cow (root beer float)," The Big Apple
- CooksInfo, "Ice Cream Float"
More food facts
Cook it
The Root Beer Float (Black Cow)
Two big scoops of vanilla ice cream in a frosted mug, very cold root beer poured slowly over the top until the foam rises.
Philadelphia-Style Vanilla Ice Cream
The American eggless ice cream: cream, milk, sugar and vanilla stirred together cold, chilled and churned, with nothing cooked and nothing to temper.
Classic Vanilla Custard Ice Cream (Jefferson's Recipe, Updated)
The rich American vanilla: a cream-heavy custard with five yolks cooked to 170 to 175°F, the same idea as the recipe Thomas Jefferson wrote out by hand.
The Hot Fudge Sundae
Vanilla ice cream under a warm, glossy hot fudge made with butter, unsweetened chocolate and Dutch cocoa, finished with whipped cream, toasted nuts and a cherry.
The Classic Banana Split
A banana split lengthwise around scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream, topped with pineapple, strawberry and chocolate sauces, whipped cream, peanuts and cherries.