With the dawn of the new century, Milton Hershey had solved the mystery of making high-quality, affordable milk chocolate. But he also knew that in order to take advantage of the demand he was certain existed for this product, he would need a much larger facility. As luck would have it, an opportunity to sell his caramel company presented itself. Hershey did not hesitate.

With the $1 million he received from the sale of his caramel enterprise, Hershey built a factory for manufacturing milk chocolate amid the rolling farmland of his birth in Derry Township, Pennsylvania. Ground was broken on March 2, 1903, and within two years the factory was turning out mouth-watering milk chocolate.