photo courtesy of Summit Memory/Akron-Summit County Public Library
Ice cream is far from health food, but that’s how Furnas Ice Cream Co. touted it to Akronites. Ross Mendenhall opened an Akron factory in 1909 to make ice cream from the Indiana company founded in the late 1870s by Robert Furnas. This sign, which was on East Avenue in Tallmadge, promoted the ice cream that was served to locals at drugstore fountains and five-and-dime stores. Furnas advertised its ice cream as “a health-giving food which adds vim, vigor and vitality to mind and body,” according to the Akron Beacon Journal. It emphasized fine ingredients such as sugared fruits and pasteurized sweet cream. The plant moved from Main Street to North Broadway Street, and Borden Dairy Co. bought it in the early 1930s. Today, Furnas Ice Cream is long gone, but for those who were youngsters in the early 1900s, it created a sweet memory.
