Who invented the drinking straw?

One could say that nature did. Drinking-type straws are abundant in nature. At one time it was common to use rye stalks as straws, but they cracked easily and were not clean. Chester Stone of Washington D.C. hand-rolled an artificial drinking straw from paraffined manila paper in 1886. He was awarded a patent for it on January 3, 1888. Interestingly enough, straws continued to be rolled by hand until the Marvin C.Stone Estate made the first machine to successfully manufacture them in 1908.