Sweet Home Chicago: The Candies That Were Born Here

Before Chicago was famous for deep dish and Italian beef, it was famous for sugar. By the 1950s more than a thousand candy companies operated inside the city limits, and the West Side smelled like caramel on the right kind of morning. Rail lines brought in corn syrup, beet sugar and Wisconsin dairy; the stockyards and the river brought the labor. Chicago made candy the way Detroit made cars.

Here are the sweets that got their start here — most of which you can still put in a box today.

Cracker Jack: caramel corn, peanuts, and a prize

Cracker Jack was born at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where German immigrant brothers Frederick and Louis Rueckheim sold a molasses-coated popcorn and peanut mix. The name came in 1896, the sailor Jack mascot in 1918, and the toy prize became an American institution. It is the only candy with its own line in a baseball anthem.

Lemonhead: the Ferrara story

Salvatore Ferrara opened a bakery in Chicago's Little Italy in 1908, selling sugar-coated almonds for weddings. That shop grew into Ferrara Pan Candy Company in Forest Park, and in 1962 it produced Lemonhead — a hard candy built by the panning method, where a center is tumbled in a revolving pan and layered with syrup and flavor until it grows into a sphere. Atomic Fireballs, Red Hots and Boston Baked Beans came from the same pans.

Boston Baked Beans: Chicago's most misleading name

Despite the name, Boston Baked Beans are a Ferrara Pan product made in the Chicago area. A whole peanut gets panned in candy shell after candy shell until it looks like a glossy little bean. Nothing about it is from Boston.

Chuckles: five flavors, sugar on top

Chuckles jelly candy launched in 1921 out of Chicago, five sugared jellies to a pack — cherry, lemon, lime, orange and licorice. The licorice one is still the one people argue about.

Tootsie Roll: New York born, Chicago raised

Leo Hirshfield made the first Tootsie Roll in New York in 1896, but Tootsie Roll Industries moved to Chicago in the 1960s and never left. The company's Southwest Side plant also turns out Dots, Charms and Junior Mints, making Chicago the effective capital of the brand.

Frango Mints: the Marshall Field's legend

Frango mint meltaways were made for decades in a candy kitchen on the 13th floor of the Marshall Field's State Street store. Downtown shoppers could smell chocolate in the elevator lobby. The green foil box is still Chicago shorthand for a holiday gift.

World's Finest Chocolate: the fundraiser bar

Founded in Chicago in 1939, World's Finest Chocolate makes the caramel and almond bars that generations of American kids sold door to door for their school band, team or scout troop. The company still runs a huge plant on the South Side.

Rain-Blo and gum ball culture

Rain-Blo gum balls, another Chicago-area product from the Leaf Brands lineage, put the panned-shell gum ball into every corner-store machine in the country. Leaf also gave the world Jolly Rancher's later era and the Whoppers malted milk ball.

Why Chicago won the candy business

Three reasons. Rail: every ingredient in the country moved through Chicago. Sugar and corn syrup: the Corn Belt sat next door, and corn syrup made mass-market candy cheap. Immigrant confectioners: Italian, German and Greek candy makers arrived with real technique and opened shops the moment they could afford a copper kettle.

The industry shrank, but it did not disappear. Ferrara, Tootsie Roll, World's Finest and Blommer Chocolate all still operate here, and on the right day the Loop still smells like cocoa.

Build a Chicago candy box

Start with Lemonhead and Boston Baked Beans for the Ferrara Pan side, add Chuckles for the old-school jelly, Cracker Jack for the World's Fair history, a World's Finest bar for nostalgia, and Rain-Blo gum balls to fill the gaps. El Popular Mexican chocolate rounds it out with the city's Mexican-American sweet tradition.

Q: What is the most famous candy invented in Chicago?

A: Cracker Jack, introduced at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, is probably the most famous — though Lemonhead and Atomic Fireballs from Ferrara Pan are close behind.

Q: Are Boston Baked Beans actually from Boston?

A: No. Boston Baked Beans are a Ferrara Pan candy made in the Chicago area. The name refers to the look of the candy-coated peanut, not its origin.

Q: Is Tootsie Roll a Chicago company?

A: The candy was invented in New York in 1896, but Tootsie Roll Industries has been headquartered and manufacturing in Chicago since the 1960s.

Q: Why did so many candy companies start in Chicago?

A: Chicago sat at the center of the national rail network, next to cheap Midwestern sugar and corn syrup, with a large immigrant workforce that included skilled confectioners.

Q: Can I still buy classic Chicago candy?

A: Yes. Ferrara, Tootsie Roll and World's Finest Chocolate still produce here, and we ship the classics — Lemonhead, Boston Baked Beans, Chuckles, Cracker Jack and more.