The Design Company.

Juvenile Country Club, ca. 1935-1950

 

In 1932 Hershey added its most unusual course. The Juvenile Golf Club [today Spring Creek Golf Club] was the only course in the United States dedicated to children under eighteen years old. Youth golf fees were $.35 and for an annual fee of $10, children had unlimited access to the Juvenile course. As a result, golf was very popular with the community’s youth. Lessons were offered to teach the game fundamentals and golf etiquette. Several youth tournaments were held each summer and the results often made the front page of the weekly Hotel Hershey Highlights. The sport was equally popular with girls and boys. Many boys, as soon as they were big enough, spent their summers playing golf and caddying for the Country Club.

The Juvenile Club facilities included a substantial log cabin for its clubhouse. The cabin was decorated with a hunter’s theme, with the walls covered with animal pelts and antlers. The main room also featured two limestone open fireplaces. The clubhouse provided male and female locker rooms and showers.

The Juvenile course was repurposed as a public course open to golfers of all ages in 1969 and renamed Spring Creek Golf Course.

Hershey Industrial School students served as pallbearers at Milton Hershey's funeral. (Students were selected from the Class of 1946): John Albright, Clyde Harman, Rome Owens, Elwood Scheib, Stephen Sekellic, Kenneth Steen, William Swingle, Wilmer Wolf

“I admired him from the beginning.  It was always an inspiration to see the way he calmly and quietly and tenaciously fought his way through one obstacle after the other until he achieved his big success.  And it was an inspiration, too, to find that he measured success, not in dollars, but in terms of a good product to pass on to the public, and still more in the usefulness of those dollars for the benefit of his fellow men.  His life and work will always remain a great inspiration to us all.”

  

 

Hershey Community Building, 1933

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 November 1928 ground was broken.  The building was completed in September 1932 and officially dedicated in September 1933 as part of the Town’s 30th anniversary celebration.
 

The primary function of the Building’s recreational facilities was for the use of the Hershey Men’s Club.  The Men’s Club offered an extensive range of programs and activities for the boys and men of Hershey.  The facilities were very impressive.

Game Room: 180 feet long, contains four bowling alleys, a court for practicing driving golf ball or putting, three shuffleboard tables, four ping pong tables, five pocket billiard tables for men, one billiard table for boys, a table for curoque, and a section devoted to games for boys in addition to tables for cards, checkers, chess, etc.

Game Room, ca.1932-1942

On same floor is a swimming pool 75 feet long by 25 feet wide, 3 - 9 1/2  feet deep,  with three spring boards.  Separate showers for men and boys

 

 

 

 

Gymnasium:  (80 x 44 feet with 35 foot ceiling) for class work, volley ball, basketball, softball, badminton and special exercising rooms as well as two courts for four-wall hand ball, also can be used as squash courts.

 

 

Men's Club Junior Division, Community Building Gymnasium, ca.1935

The Archives oral history collections contain many memories of the Community Building and how important it was to the residents, particularly the children.  Many men shared memories of their childhoods spending afternoons and evenings at the Community Building:

 

Frank Simione (93OH02):

In the early years, from starting at my eighth birthday, we belonged to the Hershey Community Building, which at that time was called Community Club for us, where they had the Hershey hospital on the sixth floor, later became the Hershey Junior College. At eight years old, we belonged to this Community Building, where we learned all the athletic sports, all types of games. I think it was three dollars for six months, and you started as a cadet and went up to a junior, and then you went into intermediate, then you went into a senior program.

Spending all that time and all those years there, I learned many athletic games and as much as all the small games that you would play, like checkers and dominos and pool and ping-pong and bowling. We were fortunate to have this facility. At the time, we didn’t know any better, but as we grew, and later on in life, we found that that was a beautiful place for kids to go.

To learn more about the Archives’ oral history collections use this link to visit the Archives online collections database.

 

The Hershey Press issue dated September 17, 1909 carried a variety of articles about the community and Chocolate factory as well as printing ads from Hershey owned and independent businesses.

One of my favorite columns was titled: Hershey Briefs: Items About You, Your Neighbors and Things in General.  Illnesses, individual’s trips to Harrisburg and Lancaster, comments about people who dropped in to visit the Press office, parties, practical jokes, bowling competitions and related events were appropriate for this column.  It reminds me of today’s Facebook postings:  the information in the column varied in significance and interest.

The Hershey Press is also a great resource for documenting the growth and development of the community.  On the front page of this issue, the Press carried an article about the installation of a new pastor at Derry Presbyterian Church, one about the contents of a large freight train delivering materials to Hershey and an article noting the completion of a new addition to the Hershey Chocolate Factory for the Longitudinal department.  I found the article

 particularly helpful because this short article helped the Archives date this photograph of the new department:

Hershey Chocolate Factory, Longitudinal department, ca.1909

Hershey Press, 1909 original masthead

1909:  Hershey, with big plans for its future, was still a modest community of about 250 people.  While the chocolate factory employed several hundred people, most of the workers lived in the surrounding communities, using the Hershey trolley system to travel to work each day. Hershey Park was essentially a community park, the only ride a small, second-hand merry-go-round that had been installed next to the baseball field the preceding year. Housing construction was underway, but available housing was extremely limited. Milton and Catherine Hershey had just moved into their new home, High Point, the previous year.

Milton Hershey’s aspirations for the expanding community included a newspaper. On September 3, 1909, the first issue of The Hershey Press, a weekly paper, was printed. Published through 1926, with a brief interruption in 1917 during World War I, The Hershey Press promoted the community, encouraged readers to support causes and new ventures and documented the events of the community and its residents.

Periodically I’ll be posting excerpts from The Hershey Press, following the centennial of their original publication.

Some background:  The first issue of The Hershey Press was printed on Friday, September 3, 1909.  An annual subcription to the weekly paper cost $.75.  The first issue was 8 pages and covered a broad range of topics:  a review of recent events, a history of Derry Presbyterian Church, a report of the Hershey Family Reunion held at the Park, baseball scores, jokes, as well as advertisements (both Hershey owned businesses and other) and a map of the community.  The paper also introduced a column titled “Hershey Briefs” which offered updates on the activities of community residents and others, a precursor to today’s Facebook status entries.  This column was one of the newspapers most enduring parts of the paper.

Check back often to learn more about the activities of Hershey 100 years ago. 

P.S.  If you can’t wait, The Hershey Press can be viewed online through a link on the Archives’ website.

Locally, Harrisburg first sponsored a show in 1914.

 Hershey finally got on the bandwagon in 1916 when the Hershey Store Company sponsored its first show.  The show was advertised in the community newspaper, The Hershey Press. 

Hershey's first Pure Food Show was held at the Hershey Store Company, 2/1916.

 Held for five days in February 1916, the show not only featured display booths sponsored by a wide variety of manufacturers but also presented free motion pictures in the Hershey Central Theater.  Hershey, not to be outdone by the big cities, filled to overflowing the Hershey Store Company Grocery Department with exhibits of the leading food manufacturers.  There were 18 booths featuring a range of manufacturers and growers including Karo (Corn Products Refining Company), Heinz, Occident Flour, Dromedary Products, Postum foods, Grapefruitola, Sunkist, Moxley Butterine (Oleomargarine), Foulds spaghetti, Sunshine Biscuit and of course, Hershey Chocolate and Cocoa. 

Heinz food products, 2/1916

 Though billed a “Pure Food Show” the event also featured non-food quality products such as Diamond Matches and ‘Perfection’ Oil Stoves.

Perfection Oil Stoves and Parowax, Hershey's Pure Food Show, 2/1916

 More than 7000 people attended the five day show that also included daily concerts by the Hershey Orchestra.  The show was repeated in 1918 with more exhibits and expanded to other facilities in Hershey.

 For more information about the Pure Food Show, search the Hershey Press newspaper, available through the Archives website.

Hershey Estates vice president James E. Bobb leads a group of children at Hershey Elementary School dedication ceremonies, November 15, 1956.

Milton Hershey’s interest in and commitment to providing the town with quality public education led him to underwrite the cost of all the community’s public school buildings constructed in Hershey during his lifetime.  Continuing that tradition, in 1954 The M.S. Hershey Foundation presented the Derry Township School District with a new elementary school.  The new building initially served students in Kindergarten thru Grade 3.  In 1956, a 15 room addition was completed allowing the school to bring fourth and fifth grade students into the new building.  In addition to classrooms, the elementary school contained a cafeteria, all-purpose room, music rooms, speech corrections office, health room, and administrative offices.   In 1956 there were 1,104 students in the elementary school.  Dedication ceremonies and a community wide open house were held on November 15, 1956.  More than 2000 people toured the new school building. The elementary school would be the last public school building totally funded by the Hershey Entities.

To learn more about the history of public education in Hershey check the history of education exhibit on the Archives’ website.

For almost 60 years swimming at the Hershey Park Swimming Pool was a popular destination for visitors and local residents.  Today, for many people, seeing the Lighthouse across the street from Chocolate World and the Hersheypark entrance evokes memories of swimming in the “giant” swimming pool, meeting friends, and teensagers staying late to listen the the dance bands performing at the Hershey Park Ballroom.

Hershey Park’s first concrete swimming pool was added in 1911.  Completed in the fall, the pool served as an ice skating rink that winter and opened for its first swimming season in 1912.  The pool was a popular destination and attracted 1000s of visitors both as users and spectators.  A few years later the pool was enlarged and a water toboggan feature was added.  To ride the toboggan swimmers carried wooden “sleds” to the top of a long wooden slide and rode the sled down to splash in the pool below.  The ride was so fast that riders hydro-planed for several yards before sinking into the water.

Hershey Park Pool; York and South Temple Water Polo teams, 7/12/1936

By the 1940s over 100,000 people visited the pool each summer.  The Archives’ oral history collection contain many fond memories of the Park Pool.  Many families came to the pool every day during the summertime.  Young men remember the pool as a wonderful place to bring a date if you didn’t have much money.  The pool was located right next to the Ballroom.  From the pool, you could hear all the great bands that played at the Ballroom, such as Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, and Harry James.  The Pool was closed following the 1971 summer season.  Today all that remains of the famous Park Pool is the lighthouse along Park Boulevard.

Hershey Park Ballroom was a popular venue for Big Bands during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.  Virtually every nationally known Big Band played at the Park Ballroom, making it the leading dance floor in Central Pennsylvania.  Dancing was sometimes a problem in the ballroom, despite its 190 foot length and 40 foot width.  The crowds were frequently so large that it was hard to move, let alone dance.  Dances always ran 8:30 p.m. - 12:30 a.m., except when Guy Lombardo played and for some unknown reason the time shifted to 9:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m..

Harry James was one of the most popular bands to play at the Ballroom.  At his July 8, 1944 performance attendance reached a new high with 6,194 people.  That record was broken a few years later when Vaughn Monroe’s August 23, 1947 performance brought in 6,945 people.

Vocalists Buddy DeVito and Kitty Kallen wait while band leader Harry James performs his trumpet solo at Hershey Park Ballroom, 7/25/1945

During the 1940s the price of admission to the Ballroom was $2.40 for dancers, $1.20 for spectators and $1.50 for military personnel.  For those that could not afford those prices, the pool offered a cheaper alternative. In an 1990 oral history interview with Dick Bacastow, he explains: “You could go swimming for twenty-five cents. . . .The swimming pool was right next to the Ballroom, and if you went down there later on when you got interested in young ladies and you didn’t have the  money or weren’t old enough to go to the ball room, you’d go in swimming in the afternoon, four, five o’clock, and then you could sit along in the sand–they had a great beach–and listen to Glenn Miller, Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey, etc.  All the great bands in the world came to Hershey’s Ballroom.”

Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians perform to a standing room only crowd at Hershey Park Ballroom, 7/4/1953

Postcards such as this one were used to promote Milton Hershey's model industrial town.

The early 1900s saw a surge of popularity for postcards. The hobby of collecting picture postcards became the greatest collectible hobby that the World had ever known. The official figures from the U.S. Post Office for their fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, cite 677,777,798 postcards mailed. At that time the total population of the United States was only 88,700,000.

Hershey Chocolate Company included specially sized postcards with their 5 cent milk chocolate bars from 1909-1918.

Hershey Chocolate Company took advantage of the popularity of postcards by designing and printing a series of specially sized cards. These cards were included with Hershey’s Milk Chocolate 5 cent bars. The postcards were first included beginning about 1909 and continued until 1918. At first the cards featured images of the Chocolate Factory and dairy farms.

Early "Bar cards" featured scenes of chocolate making departments such as the Longitude or Conche department where chocolate was mixed for up to 96 hours before being moulded into bars.

Later town attractions such as Hershey Park, Swatara Creek, The Homestead and Chocolate Avenue were featured. The cards enabled Milton Hershey to advertise the quality of his milk chocolate and promote the town as a destination. They also became a popular bonus for consumers of his best-selling product. Over 88 different designs were developed over the years. Hershey’s sophisticated printing equipment made it cost effective to print the cards.  Large quantities were printed.  The local paper, the Hershey Press, (also printed in house), reported that one year 75 milion cards had been printed for inclusion with Hershey’s milk chocolate bars.  Originally the cards were printed in black and white. Later a green tint was added and finally the cards were printed in 4 colors. All of the cards included the phrase “Home of the Hershey Chocolate Company.”  To see more Hershey Chocolate Company “bar cards”  visit the Archives page at www.Flickr.com

Over the years of production, 3 styles of printing were used: black and white, green and black and 4-color. Postcard features scene from Hershey Park, ca1916-1918.