Drake’s Cakes

In 1888, Newman E. Drake, a Brooklyn, New York, bakery machinery salesman, began baking pound cakes at home as a sideline and selling them by the slice. Eight years later he opened his own bakery, specializing in that same cake. In 1899 the bakery was bought by the company that would become Nabisco, and Drake stayed on as manager. The following year, Newman Drake’s four sons launched Drake Brothers, which sold their father’s cake. Over the years a variety of single-serving snack cakes became Drake Brothers’ (later Drake’s) stock in trade. Although the company was originally based in the northeast, and its products distributed mostly in that part of the country, Drake’s cakes are now sold nationwide.