Milton Hershey.

Milton Snavely Hershey was born on September 13, 1857, in rural Dauphin County in Pennsylvania, near the present-day towns of Hockersville and Hershey. There was work to be done. His schooling was limited. When his father decided that he should become an apprentice in the printing trade but Milton Hershey had little interest in the trade. So he left the printer apprenticeship and soon found himself working for a Lancaster confectioner. Candy and confections were much more agreeable to young Hershey than paper and ink. Raised in rural central Pennsylvania, hampered by the lack of a formal education and nearly bankrupt by the time he was 30, Milton S. Hershey went on to become not only one of America’s wealthiest individuals, but also a successful entrepreneur whose products are known the world over, a visionary builder of the town that bears his name and a philanthropist whose open-hearted generosity continues to touch the lives of thousands.