Milton Hershey was; born into a family of Mennonite farmers on September 13, 1857, in Derry Church, Pennsylvania. He left school in the fourth grade to work as a printer's apprentice in Gap, Pennsylvania. He left the printing field after only a short time and became an apprentice to a Lancaster candymaker.

In 1876, at the age of 18, he opened his first candy shop in Philadelphia. The business failed after six years. He then moved from city to city before finally returning to Lancaster in 1886 to open the Lancaster Caramel Company. Although he began his career making caramel, he soon realized that the candy would not retain an imprint of his name in hot weather. So he switched his focus to chocolate. His chocolate-flavored caramel had always been a big seller.

In 1900, he sold the caramel company to concentrate exclusively on the flourishing chocolate business. Today the company's main plant in Hershey, Pennsylvania, uses about 700,000 quarts of milk each day, the storage silos at the plant hold 90-million pounds of cocoa bears, and Hershey Chocolate is the largest single user of almonds in the country.

Hershey never abandoned the Mennonite values of his youth. He was never comfortable with material possessions and showy wealth. So when his chocolate bars became successful, Hershey used the profits to open the Milton Hershey School.