For example, Kaelin's Restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, said it invented the cheeseburger in 1934. One year later, a trademark for the name "cheeseburger" was awarded to Louis Ballast of the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In in Denver, Colorado.

Inventor Legends. Many food historians credit 16-year-old Lionel Sternberger, who in 1924 decided to slap a slice of American cheese (what else?) onto a cooking hamburger at his father's Pasadena, California, sandwich shop, the Rite Spot. He liked it, and so did his dad, and thus the cheeseburger was born.

Lionel Sternberger was running his father's diner (The Rite Spot) in Pasadena, California when the idea came to fruition. Sternberger claimed to have been the first to place cheese over a patty inside a bun – a creation he named the Cheese Hamburger. Watch our Food History 101 videos on YouTube here!

Traditional cheeseburgers are made from beef, which comes from cattle.