The Icee Was Invented by Mistake

On a hot Louisiana day, there is nothing like a good, cold Icee to cool you off. Icees are good year-round but especially during the summer months. The Icee was invented by a guy who owned a Dairy Queen in Coffeyville, Kansas. But not because he was trying to. The Icee happened by mistake.

In 1958, Omar Knedlik was in the Dairy Queen he owned when he discovered his soda machine wasn't cooling properly. Well, he had to do something with his bottles of soda to keep them cold, so he placed the soda bottles in his freezer. You can see the writing on this wall, can't you?

The bottles of soda that Knedlik had placed in his freezer became frozen. Now he had yet another problem on his hands, the bottles of soda were now too cold to make sodas. So he opened the bottles to let them thaw. As the bottles of soda began to thaw he noticed the consistency of the soda had changed into a slush.

Knedlik thought the locals might enjoy the slush product so he started selling it to his Dairy Queen customers and the Icee was born.

Ruth E. Taylor, a local artist, was a long time friend of Knedlik. So he asked her to come up with a name for his new popular slush and a logo. She called it the Icee. And the icicles draped over the word Icee that we see to this day...her idea as well.

Knedlik commissioned a company out of Dallas, Texas to design the Icee machine in 1960. He received a patent for his machine that same year.

So the next time you have a cold Icee on a hot Louisiana day, take a sip for Mr. Knedlik and his tasty mistake.