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Aerial view of the Hotel Hershey, Hershey, PA, circa 1937.
Credit: Courtesy of the Hershey Community Archives
To provide jobs for unemployed workers during the Great Depression, Milton Hershey undertook an ambitious construction program. In 1932, he commissioned the construction of a "grand hotel" on top of a hill overlooking his chocolate factory. Modeled after a picture postcard view of a hotel where the Hersheys had stayed on the Mediterranean, the $2 million, 230-room Hershey Hotel opened on May 27, 1933. Today, it remains one of America's landmark hotels.