In 1903, cousins Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith adapted an earlier industrial marking crayon into safe, affordable colours for schoolchildren, and their eight-colour box began a line that still uses roughly the same wax-and-pigment recipe more than 120 years later

The Crayola crayon started in 1903 as a five-cent box of eight colours, made by Binney & Smith from paraffin wax and non-toxic pigment. More than 120 years later, the base recipe on the factory floor is essentially unchanged. The post In 1903, cousins Edwin B…