Story:
People have enjoyed chewing gum-like substances in many lands and from very early times. Some of these materials were thickened resin and latex from certain kinds of trees. Others were various sweet grasses, leaves, grains and waxes.

For centuries the ancient Greeks chewed mastic gum (or mastiche pronounced "mas-tee-ka"). This is the resin obtained from the bark of the mastic tree, a shrub-like tree found on the island of Chios, Greece. Grecian women especially favored chewing mastic gum to clean their teeth and sweeten their breath.

From the Indians of New England, the American colonists learned to chew the gum-like resin that formed on spruce trees when the bark was cut.

Lumps of spruce gum were sold in the eastern United States during the early 1800s, making it the first commercial chewing gum in this country.

In about 1850, sweetened paraffin wax became popular and eventually exceeded spruce gum in popularity.

After he was defeated by the Americans in Texas, Mexican General Santa Anna was exiled to New York. Like many of his countrymen, Santa Anna chewed chicle. One day he introduced it to inventor Thomas Adams, who began experimenting with it as a substitute for rubber.

Adams tried to make toys, masks, and rain boots out of chicle, but every experiment failed.

Sitting in his workshop one day,tired and discouraged, he popped a piece of surplus stock into his mouth. Shortly, he opened the world’s first chewing gum factory making Adams New York No. 1..

After success with pure chicle gum, Adams tried to add flavor to it. He created a licorice-flavored gum called Black Jack. It was the first gum to be sold as a stick not in chunks, and was popular with the public. The gum had one drawback; it could not hold flavor.

The flavor issue was not fixed until 1880. A man named William White experimented with flavors after receiving a shipment of chicle. He solved the problem by adding sugar and corn syrup to the mix. The first flavor he used was peppermint and it stayed in the gum during chewing.

Gum made with chicle and similar latexes soon won favor over spruce gum and paraffin gum.

It made possible a smooth, springy, satisfying chew that the others lacked, and it held flavors longer and better.

By the early 1900s, with improved methods of manufacturing, packaging and marketing, modern chewing gum was well on its way to its current popularity.

Milestones:
1848 John Curtis made and sold the first commercial chewing gum called Maine Pure Spruce Gum.

1850 Mexican General Santa Anna introduces chicle to Thomas Adams

1850 Curtis started selling flavored paraffin gums becoming more popular than spruce gums.

1869 Patent # 98,304 issued December 28 to William Finley Semple for rubber based chewing gum

1870 Adams and his sons opened the first chewing gum factory making Adams New York No. 1.

1871 Patent # 111,798 issued February 14 to Thomas Adams for a process to manufacture gum

1871 Adams created a licorice-flavored gum called Black Jack.. The first flavored gum

1880 John Colgan invented a way to make chewing gum taste better for a longer period of time

1888 Adams' chewing gum called Tutti-Frutti became the first chew to be sold in a vending machine

1891 Wrigley Chewing Gum founded by William Wrigley Jr..

1899 Adams and Sons merged with 6 other manufacturers and renamed the American Chicle Co.

1906 Frank Fleer invented the first bubble gum called Blibber-Blubber gum. However, was never sold.

1914 William Wrigley, Jr. and Henry Fleer create the Wrigley Doublemint brand

1928 Walter Diemer invents Double Bubble from the original Frank Fleer formula

1970 Patent # 107,883 issued September 27 to Weaton W. Kilbourn for a tobacco substitute gum.