Thomas Adams had been a man of many trades, none of them wholly successful, when he met the exiled Mexican general Antonio de Santa Anna in 1869. Santa Anna provided Adams with large quantities of chicle, a natural gum obtained from certain tropical evergreen trees. Presumably, the general hoped that the chicle could be transformed into a substitute for rubber, form the basis of a new, profitable industry, and pave the way for his return to power in Mexico. (It didn't work.)
Ever inventive, however, Adams quickly found another use for the leftover chicle. In 1871 he began manufacturing Adams New York Gum No. 1, an unflavored chewing gum; a decade later Adams Sons and Co. introduced the licorice-flavored Black Jack gum, which bears the family name to this day. Adams California Fruit Gum seems to have first appeared about a century ago, when the flavors of fresh fruits from the West Coast were not readily available nationwide; it has long since disappeared. The sign shown here was painted no later than 1920.
Adams California Fruit Gum
Surviving signage, New Main St. between Palisade and Nepperhan Aves., Yonkers, New York
