Inventor Christian Nelson: He Changed The Way We Ice Cream

Christian Nelson

I once read that the best inventions come from an everyday moment of indecision. Christian Nelson saw one of those moments in his candy and ice-cream shop in Onawa, Iowa. A boy walked in, stared at a chocolate bar, then at an ice-cream cone, and said, “I want ’em both, but I only got a nickel.” Nelson thought, why not both?

He was a high-school teacher who ran a candy-shop in the summer to make ends meet. He could’ve stayed in his classroom, and never tinkered with confectionery physics, but he went home and experimented with melted chocolate and frozen vanilla ice-cream blocks. How to coat ice-cream in chocolate so the chocolate would stick, wouldn’t crack, wouldn’t slide off, wouldn’t melt in your fingers before you could enjoy it? He discovered that adding cocoa butter made the difference. He built a dipping machine, produced 500 sample bars, and handed them out at a fireman’s picnic.

He called his creation the “I-Scream Bar.” Then he found a partner, Russell C. Stover, who helped turn it from a summer side-project into something national. They renamed it “Eskimo Pie.” Before long, millions of people were being eaten. Nelson’s invention turned into a nationwide treat.

What’s interesting is how his invention changed dessert culture. Before Nelson’s bar, ice-cream was eaten in a dish or cone. But Nelson’s chocolate coated bar let you hold ice cream like you’d hold a candy bar. You could take it anywhere. No spoon needed. Just slip it into your hand or pocket and go. That shift feels huge, though it may seem small. It let people eat ice cream on the go.

Later that mobility meant vendors, wrappers, freezers at the curb, impulse desserts, and childhood joy in motion. Nelson probably didn’t imagine ice-cream trucks, freezer-aisle marketing, pick-and-choose flavor bars in every supermarket, but  his little bar started an entirely new industry.

Nelson perfected the science. Russell Stover understood how this little bar might become the next big thing. He refined the recipe and process, making the chocolate coating easier to produce and the bars easier to wrap and ship. Then he worked his marketing magic. The name “I-Scream Bar” was funny, but Stover wanted something bold and universal. They renamed it the “Eskimo Pie.” Within a year, it was on store counters across the country.

By 1922, thousands of soda fountains and confectioners were selling Nelson’s chocolate-covered ice-cream bars. Stover set up a licensing system that let other companies produce them under Nelson’s patent. Newspapers called it “the national frozen confection.” The two men had done the impossible and turned ice-cream into a portable, branded experience.

Nelson later said, “It took a man like Stover to make it a success.” He wasn’t wrong. Nelson had the patience to fail a hundred times until the chocolate stuck. Stover had the vision that transformed it from a hometown novelty into a national habit. Together, they changed how we dessert.