As far back as 1840, a "soda water fountain" had sweetened the lives of Jacksonville residents.  The earliest establishment offered a variety of flavorful syrups for its cool concoctions.   It operated in a drug store owned by Moses S. Hyams, a Jewish physician from South Carolina.  

In 1850, residents also frequented an "ice cream arbor."  The downtown business was probably situated in back of a dwelling next to a hotel at Adams & Newnan streets.  Today, the site is occupied by a building that contains the Florida Ballet Company, located in front of the Florida Theater.

Ice cream has been sold in the United States at least as early as the 1770s.  It was hand-made in a large bowl until a New Jersey woman, Nancy Johnson, invented the hand-cranked freezer in 1846.  Commercial production in North America was begun in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1851, by Jacob Fussell, the father of the American ice cream industry.