Another St. Louis baker, Fred Heimburger, also remembers the cake coming on the scene in the 1930s, as a slip up that became a popular hit and local acquired taste. He liked it well enough that Mr. Heimburger tried to promote gooey butter cake by taking samples of it with him when he traveled out of St. Louis to visit other bakers in their shops. They liked it, but they couldn't get their customers to buy it. Their reactions tending to regard it as looking too much like a mistake, and "a flat gooey mess". And so it remained as a regional favorite for many decades. Other stories surround the cake's creation; none have been historically verified.