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This little series is named after little known facts I read in a book and was amazed by them.
DR. PEPPER
Hires Root beer was named after the man who concocted it in 1876, Charles E. Hires. Dr. Pepper has a stranger story behind how it was invented and named.
Working at a pharmacy in Virginia around 1880 was a young man (whose name has been lost to posterity). The young man, a "soda jerk", fell in love with the pharmicist's daughter. Putting a quick end to the romance, the pharmicist fired the young man and told him to get out of town and never show his face again.
Jobbless and brokenhearted, the young man went west, eventually ending up in Waco, Texas. There he got a job, naturally enough, at a local soda fountain. In time, the young man became well-known for two things: the story of his unhappy romance back in Virginia and his knack for brewing up original soft drinks.
As a joke, the young man's customers named his best soft drink after the pharmicist who had caused his broken heart. The pharmicist's name was Dr. Pepper.
FIG NEWTONS
In 1895, a new machine was installed at a Massachusetts cookie company that could wrap cookie dough around jam. The first jam the operators tried with the machine happened to be "preserve of figs." Company policy was to name new products after neighboring towns. Since the little town of Newton was nearby, the name Fig Newton was adopted.
FLASHLIGHT
The flashlight began as a novelty item called the "electric flowerpot." It consisted of a slender battery in a tube with a light bulb at one end. The tube rose up through the center of a flowerpot and illuminated an artificial plant.
When the novelty item bombed, the inventor found himself with a hugh overstock. Attempting to salvage a little of his investment, he seperated the light and the tube (which was made of cardboard) from the pot. He was soon selling what he dubbed the "Portable Electric Light" - and made a fortune.
PAPER CUP
The story of the paper cup begins in 1908. A young inventor, Hugh Moore, produced a vending machine to dispense a cup of pure, chilled drinking water at a penny a serving.
To Moore's disappointment, nobody was interested in paying for a cup of water. At that time, people drank water out of a bucket, using a common tin dipper. Because the dipper was used by the sick and the healthy alike, and was seldom washed or sterilized, it was a real health hazzard. By chance, Moore met a rich man who greatly disliked the unsanitary dippers, and who, after one meeting, decided to invest $200,000, not in Moore's water-vending machines, but just in his paper cups. Overnight, Health Kups wer invented.
Moore's office happened to be in the same building as the Dixie Doll Company. He liked the name, and in 1919 changed Health Kups to Dixie Cups.
POPSICLE
One day in the winter of 1905, eleven-year-old Frank Epperson mixed a jar of powered soda pop mix and water. Accidentally, he left the mix on his back porch that night. The next morning, Frank found the stuff frozen, with a stirring stick standing straight up. Pulling out the frozen soda pop, stick and all, he realized he had accidentally invented something pretty good.
Calling it the "Epperson Icicle" (which he soon changed to "Epsicle"), the next summer he made them in the family icebox and sold them around the neighborhood at five cents apiece. Later, he renamed his product the "Popsicle," since he'd made it with soda pop.
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