Camilo Cienfuegos (Santa Cruz del Norte)
Village in Mayabeque, Cuba
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hershey (officially known as Camilo Cienfuegos)[2][3] is a Cuban village and consejo popular ("popular council", i.e. hamlet) of the municipality of Santa Cruz del Norte, in Mayabeque Province.
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Camilo Cienfuegos
Hershey | |
|---|---|
Village | |
Hershey railway station | |
.png) OSM map of Hershey | |
.svg)  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) |
| Population (2012) | |
• Total | 3,040[1] |
| Time zone | UTC-5 (EST) |
History
Milton Hershey, the famous American chocolatier and businessman, visited Cuba in 1916.[4] Hershey decided to buy sugar plantations and mills in Cuba to supply the growing Pennsylvania-based Hershey Company.[4] He built an adjoining town for the workers and their families to live, which he named Hershey.[4]
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 is also a baseball stadium where a team sponsored by the Hershey Company played home games.[4] The factory was one of the most productive sugar refineries in Cuba and Latin America.[4] The Hershey Company sold their holdings in Cuba in 1948.[4]
Hershey was renamed after the Cuban Revolution in honor of Camilo Cienfuegos.[5] The sugar refinery was nationalized, wages were lowered, and the golf course was demolished.[4] 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 her-see) and Hershey signs still hang at the town's train station.[4]
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.
