[2] The claim is that while visiting the hotel, Charles Watson Townsend ordered a slice of apple pie with ice cream.

[2]The manager, when called by the waiter, declared "Delmonico's never intends that any other shall get ahead of it... Forthwith, pie à la mode will be featured on the menu every day".

[2][3] When Charles Watson Townsend died on May 20, 1936, a controversy developed as to who really invented Pie à la Mode.

It was later reported by several sources that Townsend ordered pie and ice cream at the Cambridge Hotel in 1896, and thus invented the dessert.

The legend also states that a reporter from The Sun newspaper in New York overheard a conversation between the manager of Delmonico's Restaurant and Charles Townsend.

The newspaper accordingly ran a story on May 23, 1936, about how the dessert was in fact invented inside a Superior Street restaurant in Duluth, Minnesota, in the 1880s.

[6][7][8][9] A grand opening bill of fare for the Hotel la Perl was published in the March 26, 1885, issue of the Duluth Daily Tribune.

In 1856, Gieriet was put in charge of food service at the White House under the administration of President Franklin Pierce.

In 1886, the Duluth Weekly Tribune stated the Hotel la Perl had gained a "first-class reputation" under Gieriet's management.