Popsicle’s 11-year-old inventor

Eleven-year-old Frank Epperson mixed some soda water powder and water and left the mixture on the back porch overnight with the stirring stick still in it. The night turned out to be very cold and the next day Frank found he had a stick of frozen soda water. The year was 1905. Eighteen years later, in 1923, Frank began a business producing ‘Epsicles’, as he started to call it, in different fruit flavours. His invention was a roaring commercial success and he applied for a patent for it the next year. The name of this iced fruit candy bar was changed to Popsicle and, by 1928, Epperson had earned royalties on more than 60 million Popsicle ice pops! The most popular flavour of Popsicle is orange and has been so from the beginning. Frank Epperson is among the world’s youngest inventors.