Eskimo Pie, the chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bar wrapped in foil, was the invention of Danish Immigrant Christian Kent Nelson, who was a school teacher
and the owner of a candy store. He got the inspiration for Eskimo Pie in 1920 in
Onawa, Iowa when a young customer couldn’t decide between ice cream or a
chocolate bar. After experimenting with various ways of coating bricks of ice
cream with melted chocolate, Nelson began selling his discovery under the
name of “I-Scream Bars”.

In 1921, he filed for a patent and obtained an agreement with local chocolate
maker Russell C. Stover to mass-produce them under the new trademark
name “Eskimo Pie” (a name suggested by Mrs. Stover). After a patent was
issued to the Eskimo Pie Corporation on January 24, 1922, Nelson soon
franchised the product. One of the earliest advertisements for Eskimo Pie
appeared in the November 3, 1921 issue of the Iowa City Press-Citizen,
shown below.

Christian Kent Nelson