Hot Dog

In its home country of Germany, the hot dog was called the frankfurter. It was named after Frankfurt, a German city.

Frankfurters were first sold in the United States in the 1860s. Americans called frankfurters "dachshund sausages." A dachshund is a dog from Germany with a very long body and short legs. "Dachshund sausage" seemed like a good name for the frankfurter.

Dachshund sausages first became popular in New York, especially at baseball games. At games they were sold by men who kept them warm in hot-water tanks. As the men walked up and down the rows of people, they yelled, "Get your dachshund sausages! Get your hot dachshund sausages!" People got the sausages on buns, a special bread.

One day in 1906 a newspaper cartoonist named Tad Dorgan went to a baseball game. When he saw the men with the dachshund sausages, he got an idea for a cartoon. The next day at the newspaper office he drew a bun with a dachshund inside—not a dachshund sausage, but a dachshund. Dorgan didn't know how to spell dachshund. Under the cartoon, he wrote "Get your hot dogs!"

The cartoon was a sensation, and so was the new name. If you go to a baseball game today, you can still see sellers walking around with hot-water tanks. As they walk up and down the rows they yell, "Get your hot dogs here! Get your hot dogs!"