White Castle

White Castle was founded in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas, by cook Walter Anderson and businessman Billy Ingram with a $700 investment, making it America's first fast-food hamburger chain. The founders chose the name to emphasize cleanliness and permanence at a time when ground beef was widely distrusted by consumers. In 1961, White Castle became the first fast-food chain to sell one billion hamburgers, and it remains privately owned by the Ingram family today.