Did You Know That The Popsicle Was Accidentally Invented By An 11-Year-Old?

There are a lot of reasons why we may enjoy the summer, but there are certain things that really make life worth living when the heat turns up during that time of the year.

Perhaps one of the things that we enjoy more than any other is a nice frozen treat like a popsicle, but you might be surprised with their origin.

Using ice to keep our drinks and food cold is nothing new, although it wasn’t always as easy as heading to the freezer. Thousands of years ago, ice would be carried from the mountains by the Romans to keep things cool, and they would use some of the ice to create frozen treats by mixing it with fruit and syrup.

The ancient Chinese also did something similar to what the Romans did, and they would create some frozen treats as well. Of course, unless you had easy access to ice, this was something that was reserved for royalty and the elite.

Today, frozen treats are popular among a much wider range of people and they are easily accessible, and we have an 11-year-old boy to thank for it. After all, back in 1905, a young lad named Frank Epperson would create one of our favorite frozen treat, the popsicle, in San Francisco.

The young boy was trying to make a soda when the weather was cool, so he mixed water and soda power with a wooden stirring stick. Rather than bringing it in and enjoying it right away, he forgot about it and left it on the porch.

Imagine his delight when he woke up in the morning and found that the wooden stick was frozen partially inside of the mixture, resulting in the first popsicle, which he called the Epsicle.

According to a report in smartsidenews, he began selling the treats in the neighborhood for a nickel. By 1923, he had patented his frozen treat on a stick but at this point, it was renamed because his children were always asking for “Pops Sicles.”

Unfortunately, he fell on hard times financially and had to sell the rights to his popsicles to Joe Lowe Co. According to smartsidenews, he said during an interview that he hasn’t been the same since.

The Popsicle was popular in his local area, but the Joe Lowe Co. made it popular on a national scale. A second state was even added during the Great Depression, making the popular treat even more popular.

There was some competition in the frozen treat market, and Good Humor had its own ice cream on a stick that was covered in chocolate. They ended up suing the Joe Lowe Company over copyright infringement, but the courts decided that they could continue to sell their frozen treat and Good Humor could focus on their ice cream.

This became even less of an issue after popsicles and good humor were both purchased by the Unilever company, which is now responsible for putting about 2 billion frozen treats and in our hands every year.