Maybe this can help a little: Barry Popick, a prominent hot dog historian and linguist at the university, says the word "hot dog" began appearing in college magazines in the 1890s. Students at Yale University began to refer to the wagons selling hot sausages in buns outside their dorms as "dog wagons." Kraig said one of the popular stands was dubbed even "The Kennel Club." It didn't take long for the use of the word "dog" to become "hot dog." Popick found the first reference to "hot dogs" in an article published in the October 19, 1895, issue of the Yale Record which referred to folks "contentedly munching on hot dogs." But the truth is that Germans have been eating their "little dog" sausages with bread for ages, Kraig said. Some reports say German immigrants first sold them from push carts in New York City's Bowery in the 1860s. Another story claims Charles Feltman, a German butcher in 1871, served the sausages with milk rolls from his stand on Coney Island