Hershey,_Cuba
Camilo Cienfuegos (Santa Cruz del Norte)
Village in Mayabeque, Cuba
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.
Camilo Cienfuegos
Hershey | |
|---|---|
Village | |
Hershey railway station | |
OSM map of Hershey | |
Location of Hershey in Cuba | |
| Coordinates: 23°07′45″N 81°56′31″W | |
| Country |  Cuba |
| Province | Mayabeque |
| Municipality | Santa Cruz del Norte |
| Founded | 1916 |
| Elevation | 113 m (371 ft) |
| Time zone | UTC-5 (EST) |
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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.[citation needed]
Residents still refer to the town as Hershey (pronounced as AIR-see) and Hershey signs still hang at the town's train station.[3]
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.
- Mapa de Carreteras de Cuba (Road map of Cuba). Ediciones GEO, Havana 2011 - ISBN 959-7049-21-X
- 3647876021 Camilo Cienfuegos (Hershey) on OpenStreetMap
- Semple, Kirk (7 December 2022). "In Cuban Town That Hershey Built, Memories Both Bitter and Sweet". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 October 2022.
- Miroff, Nick (5 May 2015). "The Cuban town Mr. Hershey built". The Washington Post. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
Media related to Camilo Cienfuegos (Hershey) at Wikimedia Commons