Milton S. Hershey opened his first sweet shop in Philadelphia in 1873. He left Philadelphia six years later, but returned to Pennsylvania in 1886 (after unsuccesful business ventures in Denver and New York) and set up a company to manufacture caramel.
Hershey began making chocolate in 1900, and in 1903 he began to develop a new plant in his home town of Derry Church, Pennsylvania. The community that grew up around the plant came to be known as Hershey.
Hershey is 14 miles from Harrisburg, the state capital of Pennsylvania. It had a population of 14,257 at the 2010 census, but it has no legal status; its municipal services are provided by Derry Township.
© Haydn Thompson 2017