Hendler Creamery Company

The Hendler Creamery Company began manufacturing ice cream in 1905 under the name Miller & Hendler. The business was a partnership between Louis Miller and L. Manuel Hendler and was located in the basement of Miller's residence in Baltimore. The partnership was dissolved in Feb. 1907 with Hendler purchasing Miller's interest in the business. Hendler continued running the business until 1912 when he organized and incorporated The Hendler Creamery Company. The corporation purchased and enlarged Hendler's ice cream business. Shortly thereafter, Hendler purchased the former powerhouse of the old Baltimore City Passenger Railway Company. The new corporation set about equipping the building with the latest ice cream manufacturing equipment. Over the years, several machines were developed and patented in the new plant: the Hendler scraper grinder, a mechanism for keeping ice cream freezer scrapers sharp; the Hendler brick expeller and slab perforation, which used compressed air to remove ice-cream bricks from a mold or slab; and the Hendler fruit hopper, which allowed fruit or chocolate to be added to the ice cream after the mix was frozen. In 1926, the company was re-incorporated as the Hendler Creamery Company, Inc. In 1929, the company was one of seven companies purchased by the Borden Company. L. Manuel Hendler and later, his son, Albert Hendler, became executives with the Borden Company. Baltimore played a significant role in the ice cream industry, as it was the site of the founding of the first wholesale ice cream plant in 1851 by Jacob Fusell. To commemorate the centennial of that event, there was a large celebration in Baltimore in 1951, in which the Hendler Creamery Company and L. Manuel Hendler, chairman of the Ice Cream Industry's National Committee, played a prominent role.