In 1871, Milton Hershey left school for good and was apprenticed to a local printer who published a German-English newspaper. But he didn’t like that kind of work, and the arrangement ended quickly.

Next, his mother stepped in and succeeded in getting her son apprenticed to a Lancaster County confectioner named Joseph Royer. The 14-year-old Hershey turned out to have a natural talent for candy-making and in the next four years learned the art and science of creating tasty confections.