Another day, another rabbit hole I was not expecting to go down. Today’s? The history of the hot dog eating contest.

I had to look it up after seeing this incredible headline and photo, but every July, Nathan's tells the same origin story of the famous hot dog eating contest.

Apparently it goes like this: 1916, Coney Island, four immigrants settle a bet about who's the most American with a hot dog eating contest. It's a good story. It's also, by Nathan's own former president's admission, a legend. Completely made up. The first contest the company can actually document happened in 1972.

So what actually happened before that? Turns out, nobody quite agrees, including the newspapers covering it at the time. What a shock.

One hundred years ago today, the Washington Times ran a photo of four women in bathing suits, eating hot dogs, under the headline "Hot Dog! That Was a Real Contest!" The caption says Viola Grey won by eating 28 hot dogs in 12 minutes at Libby's Hotel, Coney Island. A day earlier, a different paper had already reported the same win under a different headline, "Foe of Dogs," no venue named.

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Eight days after that, a third paper describes what might be the same contest again. Same Viola Grey. Same 28 hot dogs. Except now there are 18 women competing, not several. The location is Delancey Street in Manhattan, not Coney Island. Her time is 15 minutes, not 12. And the whole thing is explicitly described as a publicity stunt for a burlesque theater's opening night.

Is that a garbled repeat of the same event, details drifting the way they tend to across wire copy and reprints? Or a second, entirely separate contest, with an already-known name attached to sell more tickets? Or was the whole thing one big publicity stunt like Nathan’s lore? Genuinely can't tell. But what I did find out is the hot dog eating contest business, it turns out, has always been pretty muddy.

It gets more unclear the further back you go. In 1922, a 270-pound man named Val Menges won a "grand frankfurter devouring contest" after a parade, eating 51, some “nude” and some in what the paper calls "dough kimonos." First thing he did afterward: called for a beer, drank it in one gulp, and said he could have eaten more. By January 1924, a man named John Hunt had won two consecutive silver cups of his own, for eating "only" 53, the caption's own word choice. Sarcasm was alive and well in 1926.

So, no, none of this is provably the first hot dog eating contest. But a burlesque publicity stunt, 18 women in bathing suits, and three papers that can't quite agree on their own facts might be a more American history than the one currently being sold by Nathan’s every July.

See you tomorrow. – Chris

Sources

The Republican, August 18, 1926
Washington Times, August 19, 1926
Daily Journal, August 27, 1926
New York Tribune, December 1, 1922
Minneapolis Star, January 18, 1924