How A Teenager Made Cheese A Burger Staple In 1924

Today is National Cheeseburger Day.

Today we salute the genius, whoever he is, that looked at a hamburger and thought "something is missing here," then went over to the refrigerator, grabbed a slice of cheese and melted that bad boy on top of his burger.

Here's to you, cheese-melting burger guy!

More on National Cheeseburger Day:

Many food historians give a 16-year-old boy, Lionel Stenberger, the credit for adding an American cheese slice to a frying hamburger. This happened in 1924, at his father's Rite Spot sandwich shop in Pasadena, California (In another version of the story, Lionel burned a hamburger and tried to save the dish by adding a slice of cheese. He served it to a customer and the customer enjoyed the new addition to the hamburger)
In 1921, White Castle first opened and sold their burgers for 5 cents a piece.
To avoid using German names, soldiers referred to hamburgers as the Liberty Sandwich during WWI.
About 14 billion burgers are consumed by Americans each year, which averages to about three burgers a week
Elvis Presley loved burgers and experimented using other ingredients on his hamburgers, such as bananas, peanuts, syrup, and eggs.
In 1968, in Mattoon, Illinois, a small restaurant called “Burger King” won a lawsuit against the giant fast food chain of the same name because they had trademarked the name first. Today, there are no Burger King joints legally allowed within 20 miles of this original restaurant.
National animal rights group, PETA, once offered the town of Hamburg, New York, $15,000 to change their name to Veggieburg. (They declined.)
The state legislature of Wisconsin, in 2007, decreed the town of Seymour as the official Home of the Hamburger, attributing the invention to local legend “Hamburger Charlie” (Nagreen) in 1885. As a result, the town of Seymour became home of the world’s Hamburger Hall of Fame, which is a museum honoring all things about the hamburger.
The Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, Nevada, offers cardiovascularly destructive fare with their signature Quadruple Bypass Burger. This burger consists of four half-pound hamburgers, with tons of bacon, cheese, caramelized onions baked in lard, mayo, ketchup, mustard, and tomato slices. The burger has a staggering 9,982 calories.

A few places around town are offering deals on this national Cheeseburger Day: