Hershey, PA - "The Sweetest Place on Earth"

I received a note form a former student today: "Instead of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? It's now Where In The USA Is Michele Muffoletto?" It made me smile.

Well, now we are at "The Sweetest Place on Earth," also known as Hershey, Pennsylvania. Our first stop was The Hershey Story to learn all we could about Mr. Milton Hershey.

Let's see if we can give you the basic story...

All I kept thinking about when reading the kiosks in the museum was "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!" And Mr. Hershey is the epitome of that.

He began his career as a candy maker's apprentice in Lancaster, PA. Milton tried to start his own business in Philadelphia, but it didn't work. He decided to move to Denver to work with a confectioner who shared his milky caramel recipe.

Milton opened another candy store in NYC, but - you guessed it - that didn't work out so well either. So he returned to Lancaster and successfully opened a caramel company - the Lancaster Caramel Company.


Milton bought some chocolate making machinery after the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. His new product - chocolate covered caramels. Yum! After years of trial and error, Hershey finally came up with the perfect formula for milk chocolate and began mass producing it. It was now affordable for everyone - The Hershey Bar.

With the success of the bar, Hershey sold his caramel company for $1 million and focused only on chocolate. He decided to build his chocolate factory in his hometown - Derry Township, Pennsylvania. Why? It was close to the water, convenient for receiving shipments of cocoa beans and sugar - and there were plenty of dairy farms - and you need milk to make milk chocolate.

The groundbreaking was in 1903, and in 1906, Derry Township was renamed Hershey.



Some facts about Hershey's Kisses (Thank you HersheyPA.com):

• In 1907, The Hershey Company began producing a flat-bottomed, conical milk chocolate candy which Mr. Hershey decided to name Hershey's Kisses.
• It is believed that Kisses got their name for the sound or motion of the chocolate being deposited during the manufacturing process.
• At first, the Hershey's Kisses were individually hand-wrapped in little squares of silver foil. In 1921, machine wrapping was introduced, along with the “plume” at the top to signify to consumers that it was a genuine Hershey's Kiss. It was trademarked in 1924.
• More than 80 million Hershey's Kisses are made every day in the Hershey and Virginia factories.
• It takes about 95 Hershey's Kisses chocolates to equal one pound of chocolate.
• In 1942, production of Hershey's Kisses was halted to save foil for the war effort.
• When the Hershey's Kisses brand turned 100 (July 2007), The Hershey Company unveiled "The World's Largest Hershey's Kisses Chocolate" in Hershey, PA. It weighed 30,540 pounds and was wrapped in silver foil with a giant plume.
• If stranded on a desert island, more than half of Americans surveyed would rather have an unlimited supply of Hershey's Kisses brand SPECIAL DARK Chocolates than their favorite book.
• The longest ever consecutive string of Hershey's Kisses Brand Chocolates was more than four miles long! It was laid in the spring of 2003 to raise money for the Children's Miracle Network at Penn State Children's Hospital. The event earned a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records.

It is true - the street lamps in Hershey, PA
are shaped like Hershey's Kisses!

In 1909, Milton and his wife Catherine (who never had children of their own) established the Hershey Industrial School, a school for orphan boys. Today, it is named the Milton Hershey School, and serves all. Our friend, Tom, is a product of the Hershey Industrial School.

Milton died in 1945, but he left his wealth, including his share of the Hershey Chocolate Company, to the institutions he established - providing a guaranteed trust for the future.



We couldn't pass up Chocolate World to see the Hershey's Holiday Chocolate House: A Sweet Candy Chalet (made completely of candy!)

• Stands 13 feet tall and occupies over 100 square feet of floor space.
• The roof is finished with over 1,500 oversized Hershey's Milk and Hershey's Dark Chocolate bars.
• 3,000 Cookies-n-Creme candy bars are the stone facade.
• The porch railing is covered in nearly 2,000 Hershey's Bliss White Chocolate with Meltaway Center candies.
• 50 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups trim the exterior of the chalet crowned by the World's Largest Reese's Peanut Butter Cups at the top of each dormer.
• Jolly Rancher candy stained-glass windows, each pane weighs 60 pounds.
• Over 200 feet of green Twizzlers licorice rope line the railings crowned with Bubble Yum chewing gum candy bows.
• 5 World's Largest Hershey Milk Chocolate bars create a pathway to the front door and weigh 5-lbs. per bar.
• It took over 1500 hours to decorate the chateau.

We splurged and spent the night in the Hershey Lodge, where everything is covered in Hershey's Kisses. The wallpaper was embossed with the Hershey's Kisses pattern and the sheets were embroidered, too! We were welcomed with two Hershey Chocolate Bars, and a plate of cookies and milk. We also caught dinner and a Christmas show at the Hershey Lodge. It was a nice treat.