Did you know that the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania was originally going to be called ‘Hersheykoko‘?
Built as a factory town around the developing Hershey chocolate company, the town of Hershey was established in 1903 in an area near Derry Church – which was the founder’s (Milton Snavely Hershey) American hometown.
Hershey (the man) had been inspired by what the Cadbury brothers Richard and George had created at their Bournville Village site, a few miles outside of Birmingham, England, some twenty years prior. The new chocolate-producing Bournville factory had gained the title ‘factory in a garden‘, and the area around it had developed into a bright, green and clean village for the Cadbury workers, designed and built by the Cadbury family.
In 1904, the Hershey chocolate company held a competition to name the new town they had built (under Milton’s careful gaze). Suggestions from the workers and residents included; ‘Ideal‘, ‘Majestic‘, ‘Oasis‘, ‘Zenith’ and ‘St. Milton’s’.
The winner was submitted by a Mrs. TK Doyle, who had proposed the name ‘Hersheykoko‘.
However, the winning name was also much disliked, including by Milton Hershey’s wife Kitty. And it was eventually rejected by the Post Office for sounding ‘too commercial’.
The name of ‘Hershey‘ was by far the most popular submission and was accepted by the federal government.
The first US mail addressed to the town of ‘Hershey‘, Pennsylvania, arrived on 7th February 1906.
What would you have named the new chocolate town?
The British Candy Connoisseur 