Camilo Cienfuegos
Hershey
Village
Hershey railway station
Hershey railway station
OSM map of Hershey
OSM map of Hershey
Camilo Cienfuegos (Santa Cruz del Norte) is located in Cuba
Camilo Cienfuegos (Santa Cruz del Norte)
Location of Hershey in Cuba
Coordinates: 23°07′45″N 81°56′31″W / 23.12917°N 81.94194°W / 23.12917; -81.94194
Country Cuba
ProvinceMayabeque
MunicipalitySanta Cruz del Norte
Founded1916
Elevation
113 m (371 ft)
Time zoneUTC-5 (EST)

Hershey (officially known as Camilo Cienfuegos)[1][2] is a Cuban village and consejo popular ("popular council", i.e. hamlet) of the municipality of Santa Cruz del Norte, in Mayabeque Province.

History

Milton Hershey, the famous American chocolatier and businessman, visited Cuba in 1916.[3] Hershey decided to buy sugar plantations and mills in Cuba to supply the growing Pennsylvania-based Hershey Company.[3] He built an adjoining town for the workers and their families to live, which he named Hershey.[3]

The village grew to 160 homes and had high standards of living, a public school, medical clinic, stores, a movie theater, and a golf course. There was also a baseball stadium where a team sponsored by the Hershey Company played home games.[3] The factory was one of the most productive sugar refineries in Cuba and Latin America.[3] The Hershey Company sold their holdings in Cuba in 1948.[3]

Hershey was renamed after the Cuban Revolution in honor of Camilo Cienfuegos.[4] The sugar refinery was nationalized, wages were lowered, and the baseball stadium was demolished.[3] The mill was closed in 2002 under the pretense that the factory had become inefficient.

Residents still refer to the town as Hershey (pronounced as AIR-see) and Hershey signs still hang at the town's train station.[3]

Geography

Hershey, located between the cities of Havana and Matanzas, is 3 km from Santa Cruz del Norte and the Atlantic coast. Other nearby villages are La Sierra, Jibacoa, San Antonio del Río Blanco, and Loma de Travieso.

The village has a station on the main line of the Hershey Electric Railway, with a branch to Jaruco, and is 5 km from the "Vía Blanca" highway that connects Havana to Varadero.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mapa de Carreteras de Cuba (Road map of Cuba). Ediciones GEO, Havana 2011 - ISBN 959-7049-21-X
  2. ↑ 3647876021 Camilo Cienfuegos (Hershey) on OpenStreetMap
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Semple, Kirk (7 December 2022). "In Cuban Town That Hershey Built, Memories Both Bitter and Sweet". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 October 2022.
  4. ↑ Miroff, Nick (5 May 2015). "The Cuban town Mr. Hershey built". The Washington Post. Retrieved 27 May 2015.

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