YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Sunday’s forecast calls for temperatures in the 80s, making it a great day to indulge in some ice cream – and to learn about its city history.
The Mahoning Valley Historical Society will mark National Ice Cream Day from noon to 4 p.m. at the Tyler History Center, 325 W. Federal St.
“It’s a great place to do it,” Traci Manning, MVHS curator of education, said of the center. “It was the original home of Harry Burt’s Good Humor Ice Cream Bar, and we’re gonna have so much going on Sunday.”
Activities include free Good Humor Bars – although supplies are limited – ice cream making, a barbershop quartet and tours viewing ice cream shops and candy stores that formerly operated downtown. The event is free.
“We want to see families come out for the day, people that are just interested in learning a little bit of history, anyone that just wants to cool off with an ice cream bar, listen to some music,” Manning said. “We just want to see as many people here as we can to celebrate with us.”
The event is sponsored by the Joy Cone Co. in Hermitage, Pa., with Livi Steel in Warren sponsoring the ice cream.
“At Joy Cone, we believe in more than just making ice cream cones,” said Jenn Chlpka, director of retail sales and marketing at the company. “We believe in building the community.”
Sponsoring Sunday’s event is one way the employee-owned company, which dates to 1918, can connect with the people it serves as well as celebrate a summer tradition, she said.
“And what better way to support the products that we produce than with the perfect pairing: ice cream,” Chlpka said. “It pretty much gives us a way to give back to the community and be a part of the community …”
Burt, who spent his adult life in Youngstown, invented the Good Humor Bar in the early 1920s. The company has since been sold a number of times, and the sweet treat is part of the international conglomerate Unilever.
Burt was a confectioner all of his life and loved ice cream, Manning explained. He wanted to develop a cleaner way to eat it.
“He had kind of mastered this way of covering it with chocolate, but if you can imagine, your hands get a little messy,” she said. “One night he was working with his family and they decided to put it on a stick, and it solved the problem of having messy hands. And the Good Humor Bar was invented.”
There’s a connection between Burt and MVHS too. He operated the Good Humor company in the building that houses the Tyler History Center. MVHS acquired the building in 2007 and moved in in the early 2010s.
“Harry Burt upgraded this entire building,” Manning said. “On the lower level was the ice cream factory, where he made the ice cream.
Burt opened the building in 1922 and included restaurants, a soda fountain, a candy counter and a bakery where customers could buy bread. It also housed a flower shop, an upstairs ballroom, private dining rooms with a kitchen and a factory for chocolate and candy making on the third floor.
And the Good Humor Bar, originally called an ice cream sucker, wasn’t Burt’s first invention.
“He invented the food truck,” Manning explained. “He would sell ice cream door to door with a food truck, so that originates right here in Youngstown. He was kind of a trailblazer in a lot of different ways. And people can learn all about that on Sunday.”
Pictured at top: A photo of a Burt’s Ice Cream truck.