Chocolate Avenue is a street in

Hershey, Pennsylvania Hershey is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Derry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is home to The Hershey Company, which was founded by candy magnate Milton S. Hershey. The community is lo ...

, that runs past the site of the original Hershey's Chocolate Factory, and is considered to be the main street of the town. It runs northeasterly from Hersheypark Drive to the intersection of Pennsylvania Route 3017 (Lingle Avenue), at which point the road crosses into

Lebanon County Lebanon County ( Pennsylvania Dutch: Lebanon Kaundi) is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the population was 133,568. Its county seat is the city of Lebanon. The county was formed from portions of Dauphi ...

and continues as Main Street in Palmyra Borough. Most of Chocolate Avenue is a segment of U.S. Route 422.

History

Chocolate Avenue was one of the first two streets built in the town of Hershey by

Milton Hershey Milton Snavely Hershey (September 13, 1857 – October 13, 1945) was an American chocolatier, businessman, and philanthropist. Trained in the confectionery business, Hershey pioneered the manufacture of caramel, using fresh milk. He launched t ...

when he built up the town for his chocolate empire; the other was Cocoa Avenue, which intersects Chocolate Avenue to form the town square. The name of the street was selected by Milton Hershey himself. He picked names for many streets in the town that related to chocolate. Chocolate Avenue is known for its

street lamp A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of landform, land adjoining buildings in an urban area, urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as ...

s that are shaped like

Hershey's Kisses Hershey's Kisses is a brand of chocolate first produced by the Hershey Company in 1907. The bite-sized pieces of chocolate have a distinctive conical shape, sometimes described as flat-bottomed teardrops. Hershey's Kisses chocolates are wrapped i ...

. These unique lamps were designed by engineers with th
Line Material Company
and manufactured using a process called aluminum

metal spinning Metal spinning, also known as spin forming or spinning or metal turning most commonly, is a metalworking process by which a disc or tube of metal is rotated at high speed and formed into an axially symmetric part. Spinning can be performed by han ...

in 1963. Some of the kisses are shown as being wrapped, and some as unwrapped, alternating between these two designs. These lamps can also be found on

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

. In 1990, the need to replace the wrappers for the lamps became noticeable. The street has been known for traffic congestion during the summer months due to tourists visiting

Hersheypark Hersheypark (known as Hershey Park until 1970) is a family theme park located in Hershey, Pennsylvania, about east of Harrisburg, and west of Philadelphia. The park was founded in 1906 by Milton S. Hershey as a leisure park for the employees of ...

and other local attractions.

References

Hershey, Pennsylvania Roads in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area Streets in Hershey, Pennsylvania Transportation in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania {{HarrisburgPA-stub