01/30/2024
Here is the "Cozy Dog Drive In, Springfield, Illinois on Route 66 circa 1950. Notice the Cozy Dogs panel truck behind their building.
Cozy Dogs’ creator, Ed Waldmire, had eaten an unusual sandwich on a trip to Muskogee, Okla., during his youth: a wiener baked in cornbread. Returning to Illinois, Waldmire told a fellow student at Knox College about it, saying he wished he could make something similar that would cook faster. A few years later Waldmire, now in the Air Force stationed at Amarillo, Texas, had forgotten the conversation. But unbeknownst to him, it was on the mind of his college buddy, Don Strand, whose father owned a bakery. Strand developed a cornmeal mix that would stick on a weiner and could be deep-fried. Strand sent his mix to Texas, and Waldmire experimented in the U.S.O. kitchen with hot dogs stuck on cocktail forks, communicating back and forth until the recipe for their “Crusty Curs” was perfected. Waldmire sold “thousands” at the U.S.O. and P.X. as well as in the town of Amarillo until he returned to Springfield at the end of his military service in 1946. Waldmire wanted to introduce his creation to his hometown, but his wife, Virginia, thought the moniker “Crusty Cur” was a bit too crusty. The couple came up with the name “Cozy Dog,” and Virginia designed the logo of two corn dogs in a “cozy” embrace.
