It is hard to imagine an adult or child in America who has not eaten a Popsicle, especially on a hot day.  That refreshing, tasty frozen treat on a stick was a serendipitous invention of an 11 year old boy in San Francisco who stumbled upon the idea in the winter of 1905. As he related his story years later, Frank W. Epperson came up with the idea for the frozen confection one very cold evening in San Francisco.

Epperson had been mixing soda-water powders and water – a popular concoction at the time – in an attempt to create an unusual or exotic flavor.  One evening he went to bed leaving a half-full glass of a mixture on the back porch, still with the stirring stick in the glass. It was an unusually cold night, so much so that Stow Lake in the Golden Gate Park froze over – and when he returned to the porch the next morning his experimental mixture was frozen.

Frank’s warm hands around the glass caused the frozen liquid to come free from the glass. He removed it by the stirring stick embedded in the frozen liquid and, Voia!, the “Eppsicle” was born. Being only a young boy, Frank Epperson didn’t recognize the potential of his frozen confection.  He did continue to make his treat, even selling them to friends and neighborhood children under the name of “Eppsicle.”

As an adult Frank became a successful real estate man, still making his “Eppsicle” and that is when he realized the commercial possibilities of his frozen treat.  According to news reports in 1922, “the concoction made its debut at a gala fireman’s ball at the old Neptune Beach pavilion in Alameda, California.  It was a sensation.”

Newspaper advertisements for Epperson’s real estate career:

Within two years of the debut at the fireman’s gala, Epperson patented what was described as “a handled, frozen confection or ice lollipop.” He called it the “Eppsicle” – a combination of Epperson and icicle. Frank’s son is credited with coming up with the name Popsicle, when one day he asked, “Can I have one of Pop’s icicles.”

Bad investments and the Great Depression in 1929 forced Epperson to sell his patent rights. Though he had royalty rights with the Popsicle Corporation, he never patented the name Popsicle – a grave mistake on his part.

In 1989, Unilever purchased Gold Bond who had purchased Popsicle from Consolidated Foods Corporation in 1986, making it part of Unilever’s Good Humor Division. According to lemelson.mit.edu, “hundreds of millions of Popsicles are eaten in the United States each year, and there are more than thirty flavors. The most popular for many years has been the classic orange.“

Periodically the memory of Frank W. Epperson is resurrected and credited as the inventor of the Popsicle.

So the next time you eat a Popsicle, think of the 11 year old boy who accidentally froze soda-powder in a glass in 1905.