Meet the boy who accidentally invented the Popsicle.
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It’s a hot summer day. The sun is blazing down on you. To beat the heat, you reach for an ice-cold Popsicle. Mmm . . . refreshing!
But did you ever wonder who first thought of the idea for these icy treats? It was an 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson. And he invented them by mistake! .
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Ice pops are passed out in July 1954.
Disaster! Or not
As a little kid, Frank was always experimenting. One day in 1905, 11-year- old Frank mixed some sugary powder with water. He accidentally left his drink outside. The temperature dropped overnight.
When Frank went to get his delicious drink the next day, it was no longer a drink. It was frozen like an icicle. Disaster! Or not. Frank picked it up by the wooden stick he had used to stir it. Slurp! He gave it a lick. Delicious!
Slurped Around the World
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Frank Epperson with his granddaughter on the 50th anniversary of the Popsicle.
Frank’s friends and family loved his homemade sweet icicles. But it wasn’t until the 1920s that he thought about selling them widely. By that time, Americans had fallen in love with other frozen desserts. Frank, then an adult, decided it was time to sell his treats.
But what to call them? His idea: Epsicles, a combination of his own name and the word icicles. But his children had a better idea. They called their dad Pop. And his frozen invention? Only one name for Pop’s special icicles would do: “Pop’s ’sicles.”
Today, Popsicles are slurped around the world. And these ice pops can remind us that sometimes a mistake isn’t a mistake at all—it’s a discovery!
Can't Miss Teaching Extras
Show your students this 4-minute video from CBS Sunday Morning that shares both the history of and current trends in ice pops.
Your students will love connecting Frank Epperson’s story with another young inventor, Jordan Reeves, who turned her disability into a superpower by inventing a prosthetic arm.
For more fun histories of popular foods, share these Paired Texts features that tell the stories of Mac and Cheese and Chicken Nuggets and Ketchup and Mustard.
