From Uh-Oh to MMMmmmm!

Growing up in Northern California, Frank was always experimenting. When he was 10, he devised his own small car powered by two handles. He raced down the streets of his neighborhood in his new contraption.

But Frank’s most famous invention started as a mistake. One day in 1905, 11-year-old Frank used a wooden stick to mix some sugary soda-flavored powder with water. But then he accidentally left his drink—with the stick still in it—outside. That evening, the temperature turned freezing cold.

When Frank went to get his drink the next day, it was frozen solid. What a blunder! Or not. Frank picked it up by the stick and gave it a lick. The world’s first ice pop was born!

Frank’s frosty creation hit it big with his friends and family. But it wasn’t until the 1920s that the wider world got a taste of it. By then, Americans had fallen in love with frozen desserts, like ice cream bars. Frank, now an adult, decided it was time to sell his treats.

But what should he call them? He coined the term Epsicles, a combination of his own last  name, Epperson, and the word icicles. But his children had a better idea. They called their dad Pop. And only one name for Pop’s special icicles would do: “Pop’s ’sicles.”

Today, the Popsicle is so famous that we use the word to mean any ice pop, just like Kleenex means any tissue. And Frank’s story is a sweet reminder to us all: Sometimes a mistake isn’t a mistake—it’s a discovery!