Hershey Foods Corporation

After an initial foray into candy manufacturing, Hershey was inspired by state-of-the-art chocolate-making machinery he saw at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. He purchased the machinery after the exposition’s close. A year later, the Hershey Chocolate Company was born, operating alongside his Lancaster Caramel Company (founded in 1887). Hershey sold his caramel company in 1900 for $1 million but kept the chocolate manufactory, making it the center of a new business, which produced solid chocolates, breakfast cocoa, and baking chocolate. In 1902, Hershey purchased land in rural Derry Township, Pennsylvania, and began erecting a utopian community. By 1904 the chocolate business was in full production, aided by ready supplies of fresh milk, local limestone for building, and a reliable labor force in the hardworking Pennsylvania Dutch.