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Frank Epperson

January 24, 2012 by · Comments Off on Frank Epperson 

Frank Epperson, Frank W. Epperson, who invented the Popsicle on an extraordinarily cold night in San Francisco in 1905, died last week. He was 89 years old.

At the age of 11 he earned himself a niche in American folklore by putting a mixing stick in a glass filled with soda- water powder and water and leaving it on his back porch overnight. He found it frozen the next morning.

In 1922, after Mr. Epperson established himself in the real estate trade, he introduced the Popsicle at a fireman’s ball. It was a sensation, and by 1924, he had patented ”a handled, frozen confection or ice lollipop.”

He called it an ”Epsicle.” He and his partners set up a royalty arrangement with the Popsicle Corporation, but Mr. Epperson sold his patent to Popsicle after 1929.

”I was flat and had to liquidate all my assets,” he recalled years later. ”I haven’t been the same since.”

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