Hastings, Nebraska

Hastings calls itself the birthplace of Kool-Aid, and the claim holds up. In nineteen twenty-seven, an inventor named Edwin Perkins was living here with his wife Kitty and running a mail-order business called Perkins Products Company. He had been selling a liquid drink concentrate called Fruit Smack, but the glass bottles broke in transit and were expensive to ship. So he dehydrated the concentrate into a powder, first labeled Kool-Ade, and sold it for ten cents a packet during the depths of the Depression. Families who could no longer afford soda could still afford Kool-Aid.

The company moved to Chicago in nineteen thirty-one after outgrowing Hastings, and eventually became a brand sold around the world. Nebraska has since named Kool-Aid the official soft drink of the state. The Hastings Museum holds a permanent exhibit on the invention, and the town celebrates with Kool-Aid Days every August.