What do you think of this fact?
The popsicle feels like something dreamed up in a food lab. The real story is much smaller and much more charming. As the story goes, it was invented by an 11-year-old boy, and by accident.
A forgotten soda
It’s 1905, somewhere around San Francisco. Frank Epperson is 11 years old and mixes himself a drink from water and sugary soda powder, with a wooden stick in it for stirring. He leaves the cup outside, and that night it gets really cold. The next morning, the soda is frozen solid, with the stick right in the middle.
According to NPR, Frank simply licked the frozen drink off the stick and called it the “Epsicle”, a mash-up of his last name and “icicle”. NPR does call the story “charming, if somewhat apocryphal”, since sources differ on the details. According to KQED, it’s not even entirely clear whether he grew up in San Francisco or Oakland.
Patent, rebrand and broke
Epperson only got serious as an adult. According to Lemelson-MIT, he applied for a patent on his frozen treat more than 18 years later, while NPR and KQED give the year as 1924. His own kids reportedly renamed it: “Pop’s ‘Sicle” became “Popsicle”. The name stuck.
It didn’t make him rich. He sold the rights to the Joe Lowe Company in the 1920s. According to KQED, he later recalled: “I was flat and had to liquidate all my assets.”
According to NPR, about 2 billion Popsicles are sold every year today.
The double version
During the Great Depression, according to NPR, the Lowe company introduced a two-stick version that cost 5 cents and could be shared.
Sometimes a world-famous idea doesn’t need a lab, just a kid who forgets his cup.