Chances are low that you know the name Frederick J. Oshus.

But his two deputies have surnames that are a touch more recognizable.

Louis Hamilton and Chester Beach.

After hiring them in in 1910, Oshus, a man who loathed his own name, paid for the rights

to entitled his appliance company after the duo, and Hamilton Beach was born.

Though Oshus was the company's founder and chief inventor, he's now entirely omitted

from the history section of the corporate website.

Perhaps the publicity shy Tinkerer would have preferred it that way, and regardless, his

innovations proved influential in America, both in the restaurant industry and in home

cookery.

In 1911, Hamilton Beach introduced an electric drink mixer called the Cyclone, and for

the first time, ice cream milkshakes could be made with relative ease.

Hamilton Beach would improve upon this in the 1920s, buying the rights to a now commonplace

device created by Polish-American inventor Stephen J. Poplowski called the Blender.

In the 1910s and 20s, mixers and blenders, plus other companies' innovations in making

carbonated water scalable, gave rise to the soda fountain.

Not the self-service kind now commonplace at fast food restaurants, but a full-service

counter akin to a non-alcoholic artisanal bar, manned by a professional known as a soda

jerk.

Soda fountains and jerks were a fixture in the US through the first half of the 20th

century, offering up an extensive drink menu featuring flavored sodas, phosphates,

mults, and shakes.

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