Danish immigrant Christian Nelson, a schoolteacher and candy store owner,
began experimenting in 1921 with different ways to adhere melted chocolate
to bricks of ice cream in Onawa, Iowa. He began selling his invention under
the name "I-Scream Bars." In 1921, he filed for a patent, and secured an
agreement with local chocolate producer Russell C. Stover to mass-produce
them under the new trademarked name "Eskimo Pie", a name suggested by
Mrs.. Stover, and to create the Eskimo Pie Corporation. After the patent 
was issued on January 24, 1922, Nelson franchised the product, allowing
ice cream manufacturers to produce them under that name.

Christian Kent Nelson (1922)

Early ad for Eskimo Pies, November 3, 1921

Gene Wilder in a scene from Bonnie and Clyde

Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka

Gene Wilder (Jerome Silberman)

Wilder is a retired stage and screen actor, comedian, director, screenwriter,
author and activist. He began his career on stage, and made his screen
debut in the TV-series Armstrong Circle Theatre in 1962. Although his first
film role was portraying a hostage in the 1967 motion picture Bonnie and
Clyde, Wilder’s first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1968 film The
Producers for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actor. He is also well-known for his performance as Willy
Wonka in the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 1971.

1974

Gene Wilder singing “Pure Imagination” from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory