Tags: Community Building
Making a Difference: Hershey Optimist Club
Hershey is fortunate to have several service organizations. While clubs have come and gone, they all exist to provide opportunities for individuals to make a difference in their community. The Archives is fortunate to have the records of a number of different service organizations that have operated in Hershey. Some are still going strong, while […]
HersheyArchives@30, Part 16: Building a Year-round Destination for Entertainment – Hershey Theatre
In 1915, Hershey had his architect, C. Emlen Urban, draw up plans for a new community building. The building was to include a dining room, cafeteria, gymnasium, swimming pool, assembly rooms, a dormitory, a hospital, and two theaters: a small theater for local productions and a large, 2000 seat professional theater. Groundbreaking was scheduled for early […]
HersheyArchives@30, Part 13: “Hire the Forty Men”
Milton Hershey launched his “Great Building Campaign” to bolster the local economy during the Great Depression. Townspeople found work building the structures that would eventually become some of the major tourist attractions in town, (the Community Building and Hershey Theatre, The Hotel Hershey, Hersheypark Arena and Stadium) and the result was a town that offered facilities and features unheard […]
One Last Gift
In 1944 Milton Hershey signed a new will and testament to replace the one he had created in 1909, before he had transferred his fortune to the Milton Hershey School trust fund. The new will and testament was a brief, two page document. It provided that most of his “estate, real, personal and mixed,” should […]
Heart of the Community: Hershey’s Community Building
Originally planned for 1916 and finally constructed during Hershey’s Great Building Campaign of the 1930s, the goal of the building was to provide entertainment and recreation, as well as to fulfill educational and civic functions for the entire town. World War I and subsequent financial challenges for Hershey Chocolate Company delayed its construction. Finally in […]
Gallery
Click image to view larger
