With the onset of World War I, the European beet sugar, which Hershey had been using to make his milk chocolate, became increasingly scarce. So, searching for a more dependable source, Milton Hershey started acquiring cane sugar plantations and constructing refineries in Cuba. Typically, he also established a planned community for the workers, called Central Hershey, based on the Pennsylvania model.

Hershey’s Cuban holdings eventually included 60,000 acres of land, five mills, a 251-mile railroad and, not surprisingly, a school for orphaned children. By the end of World War II, the company found it no longer needed its Cuban sources, and its sugar and railway interests were sold to the Cuban-Atlantic Sugar Company.