After Kraft purchased the Lender's Bagel Company in 1984, production at the local plant shifted and Mattoon became one of the world's leading bagel producers, making bagels an important part of the city's national identity; the city held its first Bagelfest in 1986, and it quickly became one of the most popular annual festivals in east central Illinois. Mattoon also figured in national political history when Abraham Lincoln passed through in 1856 on his way to Charleston for one of his debates with Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Theodore Roosevelt campaigned there from the back of an Illinois Central Railroad car at the Essex House in 1912, and President Harry S. Truman gave his final campaign speech there from the back of a New York Central train in 1948 with Senator Scott Lucas of Illinois beside him. In 1957, Gene and Betty Hoots converted a two-car garage behind their Frigid Queen ice cream stand into the original Burger King, and after a fierce 1968 lawsuit they won exclusive rights to the name within 20 miles of Mattoon. Mattoon natives also included Patricia Harris, born there in 1924, who became the first African American woman to hold a Cabinet position and served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Ambassador to Luxembourg, and Arland D. Williams, Jr., who died in 1982 while saving five fellow passengers after a plane crashed into the icy Potomac River. In the late summer of 1944, Mattoon drew national attention after numerous reports of alleged gas attacks by an unknown assailant; investigators never identified the so-called Mad Gasser, the case was closed, and the episode is now widely believed to have been mass hysteria. The city also produced notable athletes including Duane Purvis, regarded by many as Illinois's best high school football player of 1930 before becoming an All-American at Purdue, and Bill Tate, a 1949 graduate of Mattoon High School who became a two-time all-state fullback and was later chosen the Most Outstanding Player of the 1952 Rose Bowl game against Stanford while at the University of Illinois.