The town of Hershey was founded by none other than Milton S Hershey. Having gone to school to forth grade and going bankrupt twice, he made a legacy not just making chocolate, but by building a town. The first Hershey bars where sold in 1900 and were so popular he was able to build a company town which was called, Hershey Pennsylvania. He was a philanthropist and built a boarding school for local orphans, and as of 2016 was able to accommodate 2,000 students. In WWII he developed a bar for troops that was non-melting, again something to ”give back”. In 1918 Hershey transferred the majority of his assets, including control of his company, to the Milton Hershey School Trust fund, to benefit education and advancement in science. Milton Hershey placed quality of his product and the well-being of his workers ahead of profits. He believed that providing better living conditions for his workers would result in better workers, and he was right! He built the town around the company and today it stands proud and quite beautiful in Pennsylvania. It truly is the sweetest place on earth.
In Hershey we have the Hershey Museum, Gardens, Theatre, teaching Medical Centre, Cemetery, and the School to name a few things Milton Hershey built in his lifetime and beyond. Mars (the bar company) wanted to purchase Hershey and the Governor of Pennsylvania stopped it, wanting to keep the Hershey company a Pennsylvanian treasure.
Barb and I toured the museum and a bit of the town. There is a HUGE sense of pride to all that work and live here. The street lamps are Hershey Kisses. The chocolate in the museum (some of which we had never heard of) we think are sold at cost (we looked some items up on Amazon U.S and there is a significant difference in price) we should have bought more! Here are a few pics of our first tour!
