When Were Popsicles Invented?
When Were Popsicles Invented? Popsicles are fruit-flavored ice treats frozen on a stick. Popsicles were invented in 1926 by an amusement park concessionaire named Epperson. One evening, while visiting friends in New Jersey, Mr. Epperson set a glass of lemonade on an open window sill.
He forgot about it until the next morning when he saw that over night the lemonade had frozen solid around the spoon he had left in the glass. Upon slipping the frozen mixture from the glass, he found that he could hold it by the spoon’s handle and eat it like a fruit-flavored icicle; thus, we had the first Popsicle.
In 1923, Epperson filed for a patent for his invention. Up until then, he had been calling the frozen treats “Eppsicles,” but his children insisted on calling them “Pop’s ‘sicles.” The latter name stuck and the Popsicle was born.
The frozen treat was an immediate success. In the early 1920’s, an estimated 8,000 Popsicles were sold in one day at Brooklyn’s Coney Island amusement park. The first Popsicles sold for just five cents and came in seven flavors (including cherry, which is still the most popular Popsicle).
Just a few years after the dessert debuted, the double-stick Popsicle was introduced. It was at the height of the Depression, and the single pop with two sticks allowed two hungry children to share a pop easily, for the same price as a single.