David L. Clark

David Lytle Clark was an Irish entrepreneur who founded the D. L. Clark Company confectioners in 1886 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now part of Pittsburgh. He was born in County Londonderry, Ireland, the son of Samuel and Jane Clark. He had come to the U.S. with his family from Ireland when he was eight years old, and educated in the public schools. He began making candy in a one-room location in Allegheny City at the age of 19, and later expanded into making gum when learning in 1886 of a new approach using chicle. This he would use bright food coloring and flavor it with extracts of woodland leaves he had chewed as a boy. He is best known for his creation of the D. L. Clark Company, a confectionary, and for creating some of its best known products, including the Clark bar and the Zagnut, as well as for its spinoff, the Clark Chewing Gum Company with its Clark's Teaberry gum.