On January 25, 1870, Gustavus Dows received U.S. Patent No. 99170 on a Soda Fountain:

Gustavus D. Dows, the youngest of a 21-child family from Billerica, ran a drugstore with his brother at 213 Central Street in Lowell in the mid-1850s. He spent his days serving shaved ice lemonade to his customers, laboriously pulling a block of ice from an ice box each time and set to shaving with a hand planer it to make each drink. He spent his nights trying to come with a better way to make his shaved ice drinks, eventually inventing a dispenser that shaved ice and then automatically mixed it with syrup and cream.

Dows patented his invention and moved to Boston’s Washington Street, where business boomed. Not only did he sell more and more ice cream sodas, but he also sold his patented soda fountains. The New York Times wrote that Mr. Dows was the first to create a fountain that “looked like a Doric temple.”