In 1869 former Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna was a broke political exile living on Staten Island. Hoping to raise cash, he contracted inventor Thomas Adams to develop a rubber alternative from chicle, a tree material plentifully found in Mexico. Those experiments failed, but Adams found the leftover chicle to be an excellent ingredient for chewing gum, revolutionizing that industry (the brand Chiclet was named for the substance). Prior to chicle, most gum sold in the U.S. was made of paraffin wax.