The person most widely credited with inventing potato chips is the chef George Crum (born George Speck), who worked at Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1853.

Quick Scoop

  • Most historians attribute the first true potato chips to George Crum in 1853 at Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York.
  • The famous origin story says a picky customer kept complaining the fried potatoes were too thick, so Crum sliced them paper‑thin, fried them crisp, and salted them heavily—creating what became “Saratoga chips.”
  • Some accounts suggest Crum’s sister, Catherine “Aunt Kate” Wicks, may have actually made the first chip by accidentally dropping a thin potato slice into hot fat, with Crum then popularizing it.
  • There are even earlier printed recipes for “potatoes fried in slices,” so the exact first inventor is uncertain, but Crum’s version is the one that turned into the modern potato chip phenomenon.

In short: when people ask “who made potato chips,” the accepted historical answer is George Crum, even though a few rival claims and earlier recipes exist around the same idea.

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