Milton Hershey was born in 1857. He started work as a printer's apprentice, but went on to work for a candy maker in Lancaster, PA. He opened his first candy shop in Philadelphia in 1876. After several failed business attempts, he returned to Lancaster and established the Lancaster Caramel Co. His interest in coating caramels with chocolate resulted in the birth of the Hershey Chocolate Co. in 1894. Today, Hershey's is America's leading chocolate manufacturer, and produces more than 1 billion pounds of chocolate products each year.