In 1920, the fledgling Williamson Candy Company introduced a new confection known as the Oh Henry candy bar. By 1923, the Oh Henry was the best-selling treat in the country. Headquartered here at 1038 North Ashland Avenue, the Williamson Candy Company was producing a half a million Oh Henry bars every nine hours.
When they first hit the market, Oh Henry bars sold for 10 cents each, which was double the cost of competing chocolate bars, but consumers went wild for them nonetheless. Accounts differ as to how the candy bar was bestowed with its unique name, although the most popular theory is that a young boy named Henry used to visit the original candy store and flirt with the young female employees, who would constantly roll their eyes and say, “Oh Henry!" (And for all you trivia hounds out there, in the Seinfeld television series, a woman named Sue Ellen Mischke played a role as the heiress to the Oh Henry candy bar fortune.)
