Jim Spencer, 1956, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, queried:  Does anyone know the "secret" of Louie's hamburgers? Years ago I met someone who had worked for Louie in the 30Õs or 40Õs.  He told me the secret of the flavor was the ingredients in which he cooked them. He also said that if it were known, no one would have eaten them.  Could this be true or is this just anothe

'Everett McGlothlin,1954
I worked for Louie and don't think the hamburger was 'tampered' with. He would receive large packages of ground beef from the meat company and hamburgers were taken fresh from the package.Louie made everything else
at his home and/or at some secret designation (tamales/chili).  The secret may have been due to the fact that hamburgers were cooked in grease from other hamburgers!!  The one memory I have, from my employee days at Louie's, was the number of stock dividend checks that came in the mail each day and how he smiled each time he opened an envelope!!

Jim Harrim, Class of 1950
The secret ingredient in Louie's hamburges as I remember them in the fourties was the presperation off his brow as he was cooking them. 

Lloyd Garretson:,1953
Louie's secret  for good hamburgers.........I worked for him for about 3 years and everyone is correct you just can't beat his burgers..........fresh buns mustard, good dill pickles and fresh hamburger..and onions he also used a special grease,some beef fat and a bay leaf which turned the grease a lite green and this is a big reason his burgers were the best I to remember his stock checks which he got a few everyday and also all of the silver dollars we used to get in payment sure wish I had saved a truck load of them when they were thick as pennys in them days.....But who had the  extra money to same anything at all  in the early 50's.
 
Betty Snodgrass May,1952 :
Just wanted to add a little about Louie.  His oldest daughter was born about the same time my daughter was born. When I took my daughter with me while purchasing those wonderful hamburgers, Louie asked if my baby was a boy. I told him that I had a girl. He said "If it was a boy , we trade."He has a boy that is my son's age also. So many times I have wished for a Louie's hamburger.

My parents use to tell about Louie walking down the street, first with buckets that he carried the tamales in, later the cart. He used to let people have the tamales on credit,but never forgot when some one owed him a dime. He would say "Hi mister ten cents, do you want a tamale today?" He was so good to so many people. 

Louie is rather like a landmark from our childhood. Mother stated that Louie never seemed to change in appearance from the time she first saw him until the day we heard he was killed.OH for a Louie's hamburger right now.

From BOB WAKEFIELD, 57,
When I was 13, Louie took a liking to me because I could mimic his high-pitched voice and accent exactly. One gloomy afternoon I was seated at the counter watching Louie at his grill. The only other customer was a drunk man seated a few seats away. He was hunched over his hamburger chewing and mumbling. Suddenly he said in a loud voice "I been through two f-ing wars!" Louie grabbed a knife and came down and around the counter. The drunk sprang from his stool as he saw Louie charging for him. "You get out of Louie's!" Louie shouted, waving the knife. The man was about ten feet from the door but he was gone before Louie got to him. "Nobody can cuss in Louie's," Louie shouted after the man. As Louie walked back by me, he said, "Louie is only one who can cuss in Louie's. 
 
RON KELLEY,54,
I don't know what his hamburger meat was made from except for the years 1951 and 1952. I worked for Stanko Pack which was just across the alley behind the Court House. I used to grind and deliver the product after school. It was all beef, mostly bull meat,but the special additive was hearts and tongues.
 

Clara Blakeman Lehman : No inside seating.  He opened up his "drop window cover" and sold through it. I can still smell those "greasy" hamburgers- you could  smell them a block away,and the aroma always made me hungry.But most of  all, I remember watching him slice the onions.He could slice a large onion into many THIN slices in just 3 or 4 seconds.He took a large knife (must have been extra sharp) and just went Whack, Whack, Whack ...... & it was all sliced before you could blink.I used to stand on the sidewalk for awhile after my hamburger was gone,just to watch him slice more onions." 
 
Joe Sorrell wrote:
I remember the things that "Bing" told you and maybe a few other things. Louie brought his bride to Sheridan and when they had their first child, a girl, Louie told my dad & mom that he was going to send her back to wherever she was from because she had disgraced him by not having a boy. 

My folks told him that that was not the way things were done here in Sheridan and whether it influenced him or not,he kept her. I think the second time around he got his son. When they tore down his diner after his death they found the cart he had used for so many years under the floor of the dining room part of his shop. It was dismantled and just stored there.His pickle and onion cutting was a sight to behold. I have seen him slice pickles and onions and at the same time he was able to look back over his shoulder and visit with the customers. OH, to eat a hamburger and a bowl of chili from his shop again. I don't think the chili pot was ever empty and it was always hot. Mmm mmm Good. 

I remember the "horse meat incident" and whether it was true or not, it made no difference. I went right on eating his hamburgers, chili and tamales. Beef was rationed then so maybe it was true.  I recall my folks telling me that he (Louie)helped many a young person in Sheridan to get a start. They knew him from the days with the cart on the street. It seemed that during WW 2 we always had to have a hamburger before we went home to the ranch. 
 

BING BROUILLETTE,52,
Somebody else mentioned Louie's.Just the thought still makes me  salivate!Just close your eyes and thing about standing outside when he  had the window open.Can you still smell it? He was a Turk and died there after being stabbed by a cousin in a family dispute.  Someone wrote that  Louie was not Turkish but was from Afghan and Pakistan

WELDON V. BROUILLETTE,52, wrote
WRONG!  Was Turkish and proud of it."Turks are real men".And at the  age that he married and fathered children. Who was going to argue? Brought (respell that "bought")his wife from there. 

BING BROUILLETTE,52, wrote:
NOT ALWAYS!  He got busted in the early 40's with horse meat. Big stink in the Sheridan Press at the time. History lesson:''Yellow Journalism" existed even in little old Sheridan,Wyoming. Was still the best burger in town!For the benefit of you younguns,it was war time, meat was  rationed and beef was scarce!Even in Sheridan! (Remember the Gas rationing "C" card in the corner of the windshield, good for 3 gallons a week?) 
  
GINNY BOOTH CORE,55, wrote: 
I thought he was Afghan.He was a patient of my dad's.Dad delivered all of his kids and took care of the family ills.He left his wife and children well endowed BUT he had stipulations on most of it..can't remember what they all were but I know that she had to stay in the states (he wanted them to have a good education)...I wonder who would know....hummmm  I'll check on it. 
  
MARY ALICE WRIGHT,53, responded: 
All for Pakistani say YEAH!I know it for a fact. Have the clippings around for years my Dad sent me,about Louie and the family feud and his being killed...When I was 19 (okay--so that's back a while!)I worked for Bob Totman at Totmans Frontier Shop, and Louie would come in with his wife. Bob told me he nearly sent her back when she gave birth to a daughter.She looked even younger than I did then.I talked to my cousin, Martha Wright Bacon,the other day and she said the boys are there in town, running motels. One granddaughter has had health problems, and a heart transplant. I noticed a last name of Kahn recently in the Star Trib.,that she was sent on a trip with the "Make a Wish"Foundation, which awards terminally ill children trips to various places in the US. Her home was listed as Sheridan... 
 
JOHN McWILLIAMS,47,  replied: 
Louie was from Afganistan.He was killed on a visit back there by one of his relatives.I think he was stabbed with a knife. It was over some kind of land deal,I believe.I was not privy to all the gory details at the  time, but Eunice McEwan has refreshed my memory. 

From BARBARA BENTLY PISANESCHI,53: 
Mary Alice thinks that I should get my two bits in about Hamburger  Louie.He was definitely Pakistani - which is close to Turkey and  Afghanistan.My father is my source.  He told me that Louie used the same accountant that he did.At one point Louie took the  accountant (his name escapes me) back to Pakistan with him so that they could make arrangements to do something for the village where Louie was born.They decided on putting in a well and that's what was done. Louie also had his pants tailor made by Mary Alice's grandfather and they had all kinds of secret pockets in them so that he could carry large sums of money. 
 
 
BETH GARBUTT,52  wrote: 
Louie bought Louies from a German - and he served what the German had served  minus pork.He was from Pakistan I'm quite sure. He was also worth a fortune when he died from his investments in the stock market.He had been invited to the White House a bunch of times because he had relatives who were high up in Pakistan. Don't think he ever attended.He was killed in the Kuiber Pass in a land dispute - always thought that sounded like a glamorous way to go. 
  
RON ARNOLD,52, replied:
FYI--If I remember right, Louies Accountant was, Willard Doan.If anyone might be interested you can share this with them.Doan, as the story goes,told Louie one time he was too old to have fathered any children and told Louie he must have had some help,at which time Louie supposedly took his pickle slicing butcher knife and ran Doan out of the stand..I heard this story from several different people over the years. How true it is??????  

BILL JAYNE, responded: 
A comment about LOUIE. I'll bet there isn't anyone from Sheridan who  has ever tasted or smelled a better hamburger than Louis made.How  about his chili? It can't get any better than that! Remember how he  used to squint his eyes behind his thick glasses and say, "You want  onyons, keed?" In the early days he used to sell tomales from a cart he pushed down Main Street.Louie took his new young wife,also a  Turk, back to Turkey to visit his relatives.Unfortunately one his cousins tried out his scimitar to Louie's neck and killed him.Louie's demise was a great loss to Sheridan! 
 
ROBERT R HYLTON,52, wrote: 
OK,just to confuse matters,I don't think Pakistan existed when Louie came over and started the restaurant -- it seems to me that it had been there forever. 
 
STEVE AND NANCY (HELVEY) ROGERS,54,
Louie didn't buy Dr Madsen's old house, his widow did after he was killed.Just my two bits worth. 

MILT CUNNINGHAM,41, remembers: 
My memories of Louie are of his pinched voice, "What you want, keed?"  And the continuous little, shuffling dance he did on that slat mat  behind the counter.And the way he made hamburgers. Always a huge mound of hamburger rested on the work counter beside the stove. I think the only cooking utensil he had was a huge chef's knife. One swipe sliced off exactly the right amount of hamburger, slap it on a board. Then a two-handed swish across and it was flat and uniform thickness  throughout. Another quick swipe ran the knife under the meat, lifted,  and slapped it on the griddle. When served, it hung out about a quarter  inch all around the bun. 
 
MARY ALICE WRIGHT,53
My sources reveal that two out of three isn't bad: A 1926 "Sheridan Post Enterprise," March 28, article  lists   the birthplace of "Hamburger Louie" as Afghanistan. As predicted by Robert R. (Bobby) Hylton, M.D. and confirmed in a Sheridan Press article in July, 1964 , the part of Afghanistan where he was born (Barra Kabul)later became a part of Pakistan.He was naturalized in 1926 under the name of Zarif Kahn.Was once admitted to the Sheridan hospital under the name "Louie Kariskhan." There are minor discrepancies in the different articles and interviews, but a fairly consistent story develops.   
 

These are interesting clippings, from the Sheridan Co-Fulmer Library so I will copy them verbatim: Hot Tamale Louie Is Badly Burned in Accident Saturday Sheridan Post Enterprise, 28 March 1926. Zarif Kahn, better known as "Hot Tamale Louie," 39 years old, was badly burned about the chest and back when a teakettle of hot water was overturned on him in his quick lunch place on Grinnel Street shortly before noon Saturday. The accident ocurred when Khan, on his knees shaking the grate of his small heating stove, accidentally shook the stove over.The kettle of boiling water , on top of the stove, fell on him.He was taken to Sheridan County Memorial Hospital.  His condition is not considered  dangerous.  Kahn, who gave his name at the hospital as "Louie Kariskhan," was born in Afghanistan.  He received his naturalization papers last November. 

He was naturalized under the name "Zaris Kahn ."Louie is believed to be the only (Muslim) in Sheridan. He and Alex Mastaf are said to be the only (Muslims ) in Sheridan County. 
 
"Hot Tamale Louie" Claims He's White in Citizenship Suit"  Post-Enterprise,15 August, 1926  Even though he is a white man, the fact that he was born in Asia and not in Europe may deprive Zarif Kahn, "Hot Tamale Louie," from his citizendhip gained last November.Citizenship laws permit only Caucasians and Africans to become  citizens, and a series of Supreme Court decisions have interpreted the term "Caucasians" as meaning only those Caucasians from Europe--excluding those from Asia, R.G. Diefenderfer, attorney for Kahan, said Saturday. Khan, who was born and lived his early life at Barra Kabul, Afghanistan, insists that he is as Caucasian and is as "white"' as any European. 

An Associated Press dispatch was filed Friday that Albert D. Walton of Cheyenne, United States District Attorney, had filed a petition in federal court to cancel Khan's naturalization certificate on the grounds that the Afghan is neither a Caucasian nor an American. A letter protesting that Khan is a Caucasian, but admitting that he was born in Asia was sent to Attorney Walton by Mr. Diefenderfer Saturday. 
  
RICHARD GRIFFIN, 52, remembers: 
Great to hear from old friends, thought you might enjoy this:  About 1942 my grandfather, Clyde Cook signed up to work in the shipyards in Pearl Harbor as he was too old for military service.He came home on the train in1945 after falling on his head in a dry dock while repairing battleships. When he returned from "The Islands" as he would always say, we had lots of interesting experiences together.  I remember him taking me frequently to "Louie Tamales" for lunch.One day during rush lunch hour while eating our hamburgers, we idly watched a new helper.He was slicing off chunks of uncooked red hamburger with a large sharp knife.This helper fellow was quick but not nearly as accurate as "Louie".In his rush to keep up with the orders for hamburgers, he sliced off the end of his finger.  Nobody could prepare hamburgers as fast as "Louie". Well, anyway, the helper & "Louie" looked around momentarily for the unexpected added tidbit to the hamburger meat pile, and then "Louie" shrugged his shoulders, discounted  the loss of the finger tip and went back to slapping hamburgers on the grill. Actually the hamburgers were better than good that day.  Also I remember another time being with my Granddad Cook at "Louies",talking and drinking coffee.We were sitting on the small red topped stools near the back door which was open about three inches.A big black and white alley cat came halfway in through this small opening when my grandfather scraped his boot across the floor in some loose grit.The cat jumped straight up and turned around without touching floor or door and vanished before you could say "scat cat". Isn't it peculiar how you remember little, non-significant things that happened nearly 55 year's past? Well,I must go now because my birthday cake  just caved in from weight of the candles