Foil wrapping was an early signature for Eskimo Pie products, which were later sold in multi-product boxes.
By Jeff Stein
One day in 1920, a young customer could not decide whether to buy ice cream or a chocolate bar. He only had enough money for one or the other. And that gave store owner Christian Nelson an idea, one which would make this Iowa immigrant independently wealthy and revolutionize the U.S. frozen treat industry.
Christian Kent Nelson was born on March 12, 1893, in Gunstrup, Denmark, to Pedar Nelson and Margerethe Madesen Nelson. The family emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s, settling first in Illinois and Wisconsin before moving to Onawa, located in western Iowa’s Monona County, when Christian was 10 years old.
By the time he was 27, he was working in Onawa, then with a population of 2,256, as a school teacher. In the summers, he owned and operated the Royal Ice Cream Parlor there … and that’s where the idea for his invention was born.
Young Douglas Ressenden came into the store one hot summer day and spent a great deal of time vacillating between buying a chocolate bar or ice cream. Nelson suggested perhaps he should buy both if he was having such a hard time making up his mind. The boy finally settled on the chocolate bar and said, “I want ‘em both, but I only got a nickel.”
Nelson had an entrepreneurial spirit and wondered if there was a way to combine the products so other young boys wouldn’t have to choose between one tasty treat or the other in the future. It sounded like a simple concept, but he quickly learned why no one had produced such a concoction before.
After several failed experiments, he developed a way to make melted chocolate stick to a block of vanilla ice cream. He learned the secret was to add cocoa butter to the chocolate mix, as confectioners did for chocolate-filled boxed candies. He then invented a dipping machine to apply the chocolate to the block of ice cream, which was molded around a stick.
He called them “I-Scream Bars,” a play on the words “ice cream.” Satisfied with his creation, he made 500 “I-Scream Bars” to test at the annual local fireman’s tournament; they quickly sold out.
The idea soon took off, with other stores in Iowa selling the treats by the next year. It was clear that Nelson would need a partner to maximize the potential for his invention, but one company after another — seven in all — rejected the idea for fear that ice cream covered in chocolate would melt too quickly to be mass produced.
Nelson then turned to an Omaha-based chocolate producer he had once met briefly in Iowa City, Russell Stover, to help mass produce the product. The two men met on July 13, 1921, and agreed to split the profits from their new venture evenly. Both were so eager to get started, they signed an agreement that very day, handwritten on the letterhead of the Graham Ice Cream Company of Omaha, where the meeting was held.
Russell Stover suggested removing the wooden stick to make it a sandwich. Stover’s wife, Clara, came up with a new name for the cold treat — the Eskimo Pie.
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