May 2016

In the late 1950s when my brother and I were Cub Scouts in Pennsylvania, we sold Hershey coconut crème eggs and peanut butter eggs at Easter time for 5 cents each.  With the money we earned, our pack got to go to Hershey Park.  In the morning we got a tour of the factory, then went to the amusement park near the factory.

    Today they have a Hershey Story Museum that covers how the chocolate is made and about the life of Milton Hershey.  Hershey, Pennsylvania is not a town, but is a section of Derry Township.  The Hershey section does have its own zipcode.

     Milton Hershey was born in the town in 1857 and grew up speaking the Pennsylvania Deutsche dialect.  When he was 14, his family lived in nearby Lancaster and he became an apprentice to a candy maker.  In 1876 he opened his own confectionery business in Philadelphia.  His mother and aunt worked for him.  Eventually he returned to Lancaster and started a carmel candy company with loans from a bank which turned out to be very successful.

     In 1898 Hershey married his wife, Kitty.  In 1903 Hershey built a chocolate factory in Derry Township in what would become known as Hershey.  Caramels gave Hershey his first million, but he felt chocolate had a better future.  In 1900 he sold his Lancaster Caramel Company for $1million and concentrated on chocolate.  He selected Derry Township because of all the dairy farmers.  He wanted fresh milk for producing the chocolate.  The chocolate is made with milk that was milked that morning.  Derry Township also had a railroad through the town that he needed for his factory.  The factory used specialized machinery to mass produce the chocolate to keep prices down so a chocolate bar could sell for 5 cents.  The cocoa beans come from South America and West Africa.  He produced his own sugar in Cuba.

     With the success of his business, Hershey spent his money on developing the town, for as the business grew, he needed more workers and therefore more housing was needed.

     Hershey started a school for orphan boys in 1909.  His wife died in 1915 from a neurological disease at age 42.  They had no children.  In 1918 Hershey gifted his entire fortune to a trust fund for the Hershey School he and his wife had started.  The value of the trust fund at the time was $60million.  He built the Hershey Hotel, Hershey Theatre, the high school, and a sports arena during the depression so  unemployed would have work.  Hershey died in 1945 at the age of 88.