Almost every kid in this country has at one time or another eaten a Hershey chocolate bar. Hershey chocolate has become famous around the world. But did you know that the Hershey chocolate factory is less than one hundred years old? And did you know that the founder of Hershey Chocolate, Milton Hershey, had many failures in business before he started his famous company?
Milton Hershey grew up in the rolling farm country of Pennsylvania. Before he became interested in making chocolate, Milton Hershey trained to become a printer. He worked for a small newspaper at first, and then decided that printing was not the right profession for him.
Then he got a job at a candy factory in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a few miles from his home. After working a few years at the candy factory, he decided to open his own little candy business near Philadelphia. His first business had to close down because it was not making money. After closing down his first business, he traveled to Denver, Colorado, to learn how to make caramels.
He took his new skills back to New York and worked selling candies on the street. But this second business also failed.
Finally, Milton Hershey moved back to the farm hills where he grew up. He then experimented with all sorts of different candies and chocolates. The area where he lived had lots and lots of dairy farms, so he had a large and easy supply of fresh milk.
And he could get other supplies, such as sugar, from nearby Philadelphia. By 1893 he was selling a million dollars worth of caramel candy per year. Since his chocolate dipped and his chocolate flavored caramels were the best selling, he decided to make chocolate himself.
By experimenting, Milton Hershey discovered how to make delicious chocolate by using fresh, sweet condensed milk. His milk chocolates were so popular that he sold his caramel factory and focused his business on making chocolate only.
In 1903, the same year the Wright Brothers flew the first airplane at Kitty Hawk, Milton Hershey built a huge chocolate factory and an entire town to go with it. The town of Hershey, Pennsylvania had a streetcar line, schools, library, sports arena, community center and a special school for needy children.
Today, the town of Hershey is still the home of the factory that Milton Hershey built. And if you ever visit, you can smell delicious chocolate smells just by driving through the town.
The factory is not so hard to find. Just travel down Cocoa Avenue until you get to East Chocolate Avenue. Turn right at the traffic light and just follow your nose.
Phil Shapiro
Copyright 1995
All Rights Reserved
[This story may be freely copied and distributed for noncommercial purposes. In particular, it may be freely used for any freeeware or shareware software projects. (I'd love to see a copy of anything you make with this.)
I'd be happy to communicate with any software development companies interested in producing multimedia stories. I've written a bunch of stories that lend themselves to multimedia presentation.
Internet: pshapiro@his.com]