The Chocolate Bar That
Built a Model Town
By ROBERT LATIMER
An operator who vends candy bars, pea-
nuts and confections has two ways to look
at his busi ness-he can cons ider it a hard,
ungrateful business, or he can look back
on the romance represented by his candies,
and feel a little proud of his position. That's
just how a lot of eastern operators feel
about Hershey Bars-for behind this hum-
ble old five-cent friend lies one of the most
interesting stories in candy manufacture,
all summed up in a good look at Hershey,
Pennsylvania-a town built on and around
candy bars alone.
16
C OIN
MACH/HE
REVIEW
Hershey, Pennsylvania, is a one-man
t wn, ruled by councils composed of direc-
tors in the company. There has never been
a mayor or any type of democratic govern-
ment; neither has there been a need for
such. The town has never been incorpor-
ated, for M. S. Hershey, president of the
candy firm, and his associates do all the
planning for 2,600 residents. Hershey op-
erates in addition to the huge chocolate
plants, a lumber yard, bank, furniture fac-
tories, department stores, both utilities,
laundry, schools, cemetery, and even the fire
and police department. Every employee or
resident is either the owner of his home,
or well on his way, because their building
was financed by Hershey-and they are all
concurring upon one point, that Hershey,
Pa., is a little bit of economical heaven
transplanted upon the otherwise sordid soil
of the eastern manufacturing district.
Every man is a well-to-do estate dweller
in this community, for what Mr. Hershey's
scheme of living is for his neighbors is
opening a magnificent country estate to the
working man as his own.
The town is in reality a tightly knit
estate-with every person sharing equally
in its advantages. In the center is the Hotel
Hershey, a block long, and around it, the
homes and small businesses of hundreds of
men who depend on the Hershey Bar's un-
dying popularity to keep their town alive.
Mr. Hershey, who invented the popular
chocolate bar, is a bachelor, but has never
been disposed toward living alone. Accord-
ingly, he built one of the world's finest
hotels as his home, engaged the best cooks
in Europe for cuisine, and turned over his
first home-one of the show places of the
state-into the Hershey Country Club.
Around this is a 56-hole golf course, assert•
edly one of the toughest in the nation,
where America's top-flight golfers season
up their games in and out of season. An-
other sport of the candy maker is hockey
-drawn by a huge indoor arena, where two
Hershey teams ( the Hershey Bars and Her-
shey Amateurs) cover themselves with na-
tional glory each year. Mr. Hershey so far
may sound like a playboy-but behind all
the glamorous features of his town is the
biggest of all; his farm and school for
orphan boys established in 1909, which is
one of the guiding themes of the Hershey
Chocolate Company. Thus, every time a
nickel drops into the vendor's cash box,
he's helped some orphan through school.
It is simple to note that M. Snavely Her-
shey has a pleasant role in life. His model
community is world-famous, he has the most
successful candy bar in history, and plenty
of good will from the world. Yet, all this
began long after Mr. Hershey had retired
from business "for good"! He began his
business career as a print-shop helper 'in
1874, in Lancaster. At 21 he had his own
candy shop in Philadelphia, then enlarged
in New York only to fail completely. As a
final effort at candy, he opened a caramel
fac tory in Lancaster which kept him busy
for 25 years, at the end of which he sold
out for a million dollars, and retired. Re-
tirement bored him, however, and soon he
set up a chocolate plant in an old barn in a
cornfield; 'ti! the success chocolate had
encouraged him to throw his entire million
into a model plant and a model community
-a stone's throw from his birthplace. Long
after retiremen t, Mr. Hershey built himself
a beautiful factory, a strong sales organiza-
tion, and introduced mass production to
candy manufacture . . . an unusual record
in any point.
The World War was a decided help to
h im inasmuch as it taught soldiers to like
chocolate bars, and returning home, they
carried the habit to their families. Cocoa,
novelties, and bar profits rolled in-and Mr.
Hershey immediately put it back into the
plant. That's the background of the Her-
shey plant, which has never lost money.
Hershey's proudest point is the Hershey
Industrial School for Orphan Boys. From
a glance, it appears to be a $2500 a year
private school for sons of the elect, but its
students are made up of one thousand
orphan boys only. Boys between eight and
four years old are taken in, cared for and
educated until they are sixteen, learning a
useful trade and the value of friendship.
Emphasis is placed on manual training,
animal husbandry, dairying, plumbing, tin-
ning, electrical wiring, automotive engineer-
ing and a hundred other trades-Mr. Her-
shey wants his "grads" to be solid citizens
in the extreme. The School was established
under tight provisos binding the manage-
ment in "perpetui ty", and provides that all
boys be kept clean, in good health, well fed
•
+ Airview of the Hote l He rshey,
magnificent hotel home of visi-
tors to the model city. Tenn is
courts are on the left and sunken
ga rdens in the foreground .
The Hershey Spo rts A rena , with+
a seating capacity of 7,200 fo r
hockey and I 0,000 when a larg e
rink is not required.
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