DULUTH - Pie and ice cream is a combination many Northlanders love, but did you know there are claims that pie a la mode was invented in Duluth?

"When I was in it, it was fresh strawberry. I would make ten or twelve of those everyday. From there it would be chocolate layer, then lemon angel, and lemon meringue, and then down the line," said Betty Lessarb of the famous Betty's Pies in Two Harbors.

Betty may be the unofficial queen of pie in the Northland.

"Back when Betty owned it, she made upwards of 100 pies a day in the summertime all by herself," Carl Ehlenz, current owner of Betty's Pies, said. "And today, we make 300 to 350 a day in the summertime."

But there's another reason the Northland is royalty of pie history.

"I came across an article from 1956, which was the centennial of Duluth. It was kind of a vague article about pie a la mode being invented in Duluth, didn't give too many details," said Mike Flaherty, an expert on pie a la mode's invention.

So, he did some digging and more research, and one article lead to another.

"Led me to another Duluth article from 1936 and that led me to the original article from the St. Paul-Pioneer Dispatch down in St. Paul," Flaherty said. "According to their sources pie a la mode was invented in Duluth in the 1880s in a restaurant on Superior Street."

The Café La Perl, part of the Hotel La Perl, which was located on the corner of where Superior Street and 5th Ave. West meet today.

"They specifically said the person that ran the restaurant used blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream. And this is where it happened, right," Flaherty said.

Blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream can be seen on the printed menu, publshed in the local newspaper the day of the hotel's grand opening.

"I wasn't aware of it and I'm pretty knowledgeable of local history, so it's one of those strange facts that are strange, but true. Very few people know about it. The last time I've seen something written about it was 1956," Flaherty said.

We may never be able to travel back in time to verify, but those at Betty's Pies have their own theories of why Duluth is in fact, the home of pie a la mode.

"Maybe two waitresses collided. One was carrying ice cream and one was carrying pie and the customer really liked it and called it pie a la mode," Ehlenz said.

"Oh, it has to be, we're all Scandinavians up here, and we like to eat," Betty laughed.

There are claims that pie a la mode was invented in New York, but not until 1896, which would be 11 years after it was first served in Duluth.

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