The Frisbie Pie Company

In 1871, in the wake of the Civil War, William Russell Frisbie moved from Branford, Connecticut, where his father, Russell, had operated a successful grist mill, to Bridgeport, Connecticut. Hired to manage a new bakery, a branch of the Olds Baking Company of New Haven, he soon bought it outright and named it the Frisbie Pie Company (363 Kossuth Street). W.R. died in 1903 and his son, Joseph P., manned the ovens until his death in 1940. Under his direction the small company grew from six to two hundred and fifty routes, and shops were opened in Hartford, Connecticut;Poughkeepsie, New York; and Providence, Rhode Island. His widow, Marian Rose Frisbie, and long-time plant manager, Joseph J. Vaughn, baked on until August 1958 and reached a zenith production of 80,000 pies per day in 1956.

In this otherwise simple baking operation we find the origin of the earliest Frisbee!

The pie-tin people claim Yale students bought Frisbie's pies (undoubtedly a treat in themselves) and tossed the prototype all over Eli's campus. These early throwers would exclaim "Frisbie" to signal the catcher.

Yale students discovered that the pie tins, inverted, had an airfoil shape which enabled them to be thrown in various trajectories by a skilled person. This eventually evolved into the Frisbee trademarked flying disc and many imitators.