McDONALD'S: A burger biography

One of the first things I like to turn to in my morning paper involves matching wits with Wilson, the “TrivGuy.” Once in a while he likes to go overboard in his tricky little ways of phrasing his questions. Recently there was a classic example: “Where was founder Ray Kroc’s first franchised McDonald’s opened in 1955?”

Technically, his answer of Illinois was correct. However, in his haste he short-circuited the full history of the world’s second largest employer — behind Walmart — with 1.9 billion employees (according to a 2012 BBC report). The first McDonald’s restaurant opened in 1940, and was re-organized as a hamburger stand in 1948, in San Bernardino, California (using production line principles).

Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent in 1955. Only then did Illinois come into play when the corporate offices opened in Des Plaines on April 15th (now located in Oak Brook).

To my knowledge, the original McDonald’s still stands (although probably in an area of town some might question frequenting after dark). So, as Paul Harvey would have liked to say: “Now You Know the Rest of the Story.” I now will focus on the rest of my morning paper, and on my exercises at our own Kroc Center, right here in Cd’A. Make mine a Big Mac!

DOUG D. WELLS

Coeur d’Alene