DERRY TOWNSHIP, PA — Milton Hershey was born in Derry Township, Pennsylvania on September 13, 1857. F.W. Woolworth is not the only merchandising magnate that got a start in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In that town on June 21, 1879 Woolworth opened his first “five and dime” store. In July of 1894 newspapers received this release from Lancaster:
“Declaring that ‘caramels are only a fad, chocolate is a permanent thing,’ candymaker Milton Hershey of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has developed a chocolate product in the shape of a rectangular slab. The ‘bar’ is priced cheaply enough so that chocolate can become an everyday sweet. The Hershey Milk Chocolate Bar, which will also come with almonds, is prepared with skimmed milk from Pennsylvania cows, and Hershey is planning to start mass production soon.”
Hershey began his candy business producing caramels. When he attended the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he saw children discarding the caramel centers of some candy after eating the chocolate exteriors. Now, there was inspiration for a candymaker! His inspiration was furthered when he went into the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building where he saw a demonstration of chocolate-making machinery. He went back to Lancaster and in 1900 sold his caramel business for $1 million and built a chocolate factory in southeastern Pennsylvania. An entire town grew up around the industry. To attract workers, Hershey surrounded the factory with homes, schools, stores and churches. Saddled at first with the name Hersheykoko, the town came to be called simply Hershey. Today it is a bustling city with a population of over 90,000. It attracts many tourists with its large amusement park with the theme of — guess what — chocolate!
Hershey’s five-cent chocolate bars were sold everywhere, and they made him rich. He used his wealth to found a school for orphans and to help other charitable causes. When he died on October 13, 1945, he left his fortune to charity. Hershey bars no longer cost five cents and for what you pay they are smaller than the originals, but the Hershey company is still one of the world’s biggest chocolate manufacturers. For a single day’s production of milk chocolate the plant uses about 700,000 quarts of milk, from 50,000 cows. It was Milton Hershey, more than anyone else, who made chocolate a part of American life. To generations of children, every chocolate bar was a “Hershey bar.” During World War II, Hershey bars were included in the rations carried by U.S. soldiers. Couldn’t you just go for a kiss from Hershey right now?
It was not long before Hershey had competition although most chose not to call their bars by their own names. Leo Hirschfield used his daughters nickname “Tootsie” for his chewy chocolaty “rolls” in 1896. Baby Ruth bars from Otto Schnering were not named for the famous baseball player but for President Grover Cleveland’s daughter, who had charmed the nation as a toddler. Philip Silverstein had a chubby little granddaughter whose nickname was Chunky. His bar was named for her and it was a chockablock full of nuts and raisins, more than adequate to fit the description.
While girls seemed to predominate, at least one chocolate bar was named for a young man. The fellow in question was a frequent visitor to George Williamson’s Chicago candy shop, where he liked to flirt with the candymakers. He showed up so often, in fact, that the women began asking him to do odd jobs, inevitably starting their requests with “Oh, Henry.” When Williamson needed a name for his new candy bar (Baby Ruth’s rival) in 1921, Oh Henry! came easily to mind.
In 2002, sale of the mammoth chocolate candy maker was being considered but Pennsylvania officials expressed alarm that it would cause job losses and harm to the community of Hershey, PA. The state’s attorney general’s office urged a judge to block the possible sale temporarily with a restraining order.
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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