Fort Worth’s Poly Pop was first, but then they started drinking Kool-Aid

Sometimes being first means being first to fall, first to be forgotten.

And so it was with Paul Stevens Hollis of Fort Worth, who in 1922 invented the world’s first powdered soft drink mix.

Yes, before there was Kool-Aid there was Poly Pop.

Hollis invented Poly Pop in his family’s modest house at 2703 Avenue E. Hollis used a simple recipe for success: citric acid, certified color, caffeine and artificial flavor. Just add sugar and water and stir with entrepreneurial zeal.

In an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, older brother Chester Hollis recalled Paul’s early research and development: “He had a keg on the front of his car and would carry paper cups inside. He would go to schools and give it [Poly Pop] to the kids to see if they liked it.”

They liked it.

So, Paul Hollis patented his invention and began doing business as Big State Company, manufacturing Poly Pop in a building on Avenue D behind the family house.

By the time Poly Pop reached its peak of popularity in the 1930s, Hollis employed 200 women, the Star-Telegram said.

A nickel packet of Poly Pop flavored eight quarts of water. But some kids didn’t bother to add sugar to the powder. Or even water. They ate the powder straight from the packet.

“You sure puckered up when you licked it,” a Poly resident told the Star-Telegram years later.

That powder may have been bitter, but it brought sweet success to Paul Hollis. He made a lot of dollars one nickel at a time. Hollis invested that money and became wealthy. Then he gave most of his money away. Each Christmas, Hollis, who had no children of his own, invited every child under age 12 to come to the Poly Pop factory. He gave each child a bag of gifts and a quarter. When the tenants of one of his rental properties had a baby, Hollis gave them a free month’s rent.

Poly Pop was on the market for 30 years, but in 1927 Hollis began to face competition from a new kid on the block — a Kool-Aid kid. In Nebraska young amateur chemist Edwin Perkins invented a similar powdered drink mix. Perkins called his invention Kool-Ade (soon renamed Kool-Aid) and began to sell it.

Hollis needed to adapt to the challenge. But Chester Hollis told the Star-Telegram that Paul “had his way of doing things, and that was it. I told him the package was not appealing, that someone would come along with a more attractive packet. He didn’t care. Well, Kool-Aid did, and Poly Pop gradually dwindled down.”

Hollis was certainly modest in his promotion: “good old Poly Pop” and “a good drink.”

The competition from Kool-Aid eventually was too much for Poly Pop, especially after Perkins sold his company to corporate giant General Foods in 1953. That’s the year Hollis gave in and sold his Poly Pop formula to a man from Garland. The new owner never used the formula.

Paul Stevens Hollis died in 1962 in the house where he had invented Poly Pop 40 years earlier. Behind that house a Poly High School building now occupies the lot where the world’s first powdered soft drink mix was manufactured.

Mike Nichols blogs about Fort Worth history at www.hometownbyhandlebar.com.

This story was originally published May 17, 2019 at 5:51 PM with the headline "Fort Worth’s Poly Pop was first, but then they started drinking Kool-Aid."