Hershey
Derry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Model industrial town and noted tourism destination established in 1903 and named for its founder, Milton S. Hershey (1857-1945). Hershey's companies developed housing, recreation, education, and cultural facilities, financial institutions, public utilities, a transit system, and the world's largest chocolate factory that opened in June, 1905.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1903, candy maker Milton S. Hershey set out to build not just a factory but an entire community around it. The model town of Hershey rose from Pennsylvania farmland, complete with housing, schools, parks, utilities, a transit system, and cultural institutions — all orbiting the world's largest chocolate factory, which opened in 1905. It became both an industrial powerhouse and a celebrated tourist destination.
Why it matters
Hershey embodies the Progressive-era vision of enlightened industrial paternalism, where a company town promised workers a whole way of life — a distinctly American experiment in blending profit with civic ambition.
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Related people
- · Milton S. Hershey
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Chocolate Workers' Sit-down Strike
Derry Township, PA · est. 2005
On April 2, 1937, workers of Hershey's Chocolate Workers Local 1 walked off the job and stayed put, launching the first sit-down strike in Pennsylvania and in the entire confectionery industry. The action erupted amid a labor-management standoff in the company town Milton Hershey had built, and it ended in strike-breaking violence and government mediation. The union lost the elections that followed, and by 1939 workers had realigned with an AFL local instead.
Pennsylvania State Police
Derry Township, PA · est. 2005
Created by an act signed by Governor Samuel Pennypacker on May 2, 1905, the Pennsylvania State Police was the first uniformed state police force of its kind in the nation. It grew out of alarm over labor and capital conflict — above all the great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 — and set a template other states would copy. In 1924 the force opened its first training academy at this site, where cadets drilled for 36 years before a new academy was built north of Hershey.
Milton S. Hershey
Derry Township, PA · est. 2003
On this Derry Township ground in 1857, a farmer's son named Milton S. Hershey was born who would go on to reinvent American candy. After early ventures in caramel, he gambled on milk chocolate at the turn of the century and built not just the world's largest chocolate factory but an entire model town around it. With his wife Catherine, he channeled his fortune into a school for orphaned children that still bears his name.
Union Canal
Derry Township, PA · est. 1948
First imagined by William Penn and surveyed as early as 1762, the Union Canal finally opened to traffic in 1828, connecting the Susquehanna River at Middletown with the Schuylkill at Reading. For a few decades its boats carried coal and goods across the Pennsylvania interior before the railroads rendered it obsolete. Abandoned in 1885, its overgrown remains can still be seen near Union Deposit, just to the north of the marker.