The Hershey Story

Hershey, Pennsylvania

The Hershey Story is a $23.5 million reworking of Hershey, Pennsylvania's old Hershey Museum. It tells the story of the only name in America linked to a man, a town, and a candy (It also complements Chocolate World, a fake chocolate factory tour on the outskirts of town).

Milton S. Hershey was proud of his model town and his school for orphans. But he was only able to build these because he was so good at mass-producing and selling milk chocolate. Thus The Hershey Story's most important exhibits include a chocolate mixer and a Hershey's Kisses wrapping machine (in use until 2008) that you can turn on by pressing a button, a Chocolate Lab (mostly for school kids), and a chocolate tasting bar, where for $8.95 visitors get to knock back six full shot glasses of warm chocolate from exotic places like Java and Tanzania (This is a more opulent variation of the oil sniffing display at the Drake Well Museum, also in Pennsylvania).

There is, however, less of an emphasis on chocolate in The Hershey Story than chocoholics might like, and rightly so. The opening of The Hershey Story coincided with the closing of the Hershey factory in Reading and other cities, leaving Hershey's chocolate to be made in Canada and Mexico, but not in Hershey.