Red Grange Bar
What Is It?
A chocolate-enrobed candy bar with a caramel-nougat center and peanuts, similar in format to Baby Ruth — and packed with collectible football cards featuring Red Grange.
History
In 1926, Shotwell Manufacturing struck a deal with Harold 'Red' Grange — the University of Illinois and Chicago Bears star known as 'The Galloping Ghost' — to produce a candy bar bearing his name and likeness. The bar itself was a straightforward chocolate-peanut-nougat combination similar to the Baby Ruth, but what made it remarkable was its marketing: each wrapper included a collector card featuring Grange in various football poses and scenes from his 1926 silent film 'One Minute to Play.' This made the Red Grange Bar the first athlete-endorsed candy bar in American history, predating the modern era of sports celebrity endorsements by decades. Two distinct card sets were issued — the 'Movie Series' and the 'Ad-Backed Set' — making surviving examples prized sports card collectibles today. The bar was a local hit given Grange's Illinois roots, but it faded as Grange's career wound down.
Other Products from Shotwell Manufacturing Company
- Checkers
Candy-coated popcorn and peanuts packed in a distinctive red-and-white checkered box, with a small novelty prize hidden inside.
More Candy Bar
- Baby Ruth
A caramel nougat center studded with peanuts, enrobed in milk chocolate — one of the best-selling American candy bars of the 1920s.
- bueno
- bueno White
- Butterfinger
A crispy, layered peanut butter-flavored candy core — made from pulled, aerated peanut taffy — enrobed in milk chocolate.
- Individually wrapped chunks of chocolate
- Kandy Kake
A combination candy bar of caramel, peanuts, and milk chocolate — the direct predecessor to Baby Ruth, sold under the Curtiss name before its 1920 rebrand.