The Little-Known History Behind The Very First Dairy Queen

The world's first Dairy Queen opened on June 22, 1940, in Joliet, Illinois. Sherwood "Sherb" Noble and his business partners, John "Grandpa" McCullough and his son, Alex, knew that their soft serve ice cream would be a hit because they had tried it out in Noble's ice cream shop in nearby Kankakee during August 1938. You wouldn't think that a new ice cream product would become a huge success during the Great Depression, but people flocked to try the new soft-serve treat. Noble offered the ice cream at an all-you-can-eat sale — customers paid 10 cents for as much as they wanted.

Grandpa and Alex McCullough's formula for soft serve ice cream was so popular on that August day that Sherb Noble sold 1,600 servings in under two hours. Not quite two years later, Noble and the McCulloughs opened their new ice cream shop, Dairy Queen, at 501 N. Chicago Street in Joliet. The two-story brick building, built in the mid-1890s, featured a storefront on the first floor and apartments on the second floor.

Noble, who operated that first Dairy Queen, made $4,000 during his first season. He went on to open nine more stores that year. Today, the Noble family owns and operates nine Dairy Queens in Illinois. Dairy Queen franchises proved popular, too. By 1955, there were 2,600 Dairy Queen franchises in the United States. As of this writing, there are over 7,700 Dairy Queens in 20 countries.

In 1949, Dairy Queen began offering milkshakes and malts. The chain started selling banana splits, a popular ice cream dessert since the early 1900s, in 1951. Dairy Queen's menu continued to expand, adding the Dilly Bar in 1955, the Buster Bar in 1968, and the iconic Blizzard in 1985.

The original Dairy Queen location in Joliet closed in the early 1950s and has served many purposes since. It has been a lawn mower repair shop, a furniture store, a motorcycle shop, a plumbing business, a church, and an auto insurance office. Tenants continue to occupy the upstairs apartments. The storefront sat empty for a while after the insurance company moved out, but its future looks bright.

In 2023, the Joliet Area Historical Museum leased the building to create a museum. The museum plans to preserve the building and turn it into a museum that chronicles the history of the first Dairy Queen.  Greg Peerbolte, the museum's CEO, hopes that fans of Route 66 and Dairy Queen will stop in Joliet to view the place where Dairy Queen's history began (via Patch).