60 years ago on this day (1963), Wichita food legend Walt Anderson died at age 83. The co-founder of the White Castle hamburger chain lived on Woodlawn Blvd. in Eastborough.
He was born in 1880 in St. Marys, Kansas (northwest of Topeka). His first hamburger stand was a remodeled former streetcar at Douglas & Mead in Wichita in 1916.
His fourth hamburger house, at 110 W. 1st Street (1st & Main), was the first one to be named White Castle; that was in 1921. The chain expanded to other cities and he was president until he retired in the 1930s. The Wichita holdings were sold to Kings-X in the late 1930s.
Anderson's entombment was at Old Mission.
Even though the restaurant started in Wichita, there are no White Castle locations in the state of Kansas.
White Castle now has nealry 350 locations across 13 states, mostly in the Midwest and the New York metropolitan area; it's known for its small, square hamburgers. The burgers were initially priced at five cents until 1929, and remained at a dime until 1949. In 2014, Time magazine named the White Castle slider "The Most Influential Burger of All Time".