Central Hershey

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Central Hershey (today: Central Camilo Cienfuegos ) is a former Cuban sugar factory ( Cuban : Central ) with an attached village in the area of ​​the present-day town of Camilo Cienfuegos in the province of Mayabeque , founded by Milton S. Hershey .

location

The Central Hershey is located around 3 km southwest of the city of Santa Cruz del Norte and around 35 km east of the capital Havana . The place is connected to the Cuban motorway network via the Vía Blanca .

history

Hershey Railway Station

Pennsylvania chocolate maker Milton Hershey first came to Cuba in 1916. He was looking for ways to expand sugar production . It was the time of the First World War and sugar, which he needed for the production of milk chocolate, was a scarce commodity. In Cuba with its huge sugar cane plantations , he saw first-class conditions for setting up his own sugar production. He bought the small sugar factory in Central San Juan Bautista , and shortly afterwards the construction of a sugar mill and a village for its workers near the city of Santa Cruz del Norte began and was completed in 1918. Hershey had a railway line built between the major ports of Havana and Matanzas for the delivery of building materials and the removal of the sugar . It was completed in 1922 and was fully electrified . Today it is known as the Hershey Railway .

The workers' residence , known as Batey in Cuba , after the Taíno word for cult site, consisted of subsidized rental apartments, a health center, a free public school, as well as opportunities for sports and leisure activities, such as a baseball field , a golf course and a sports club. The latest films were showing in the cinemas just a week after they opened in Havana. Thanks to the good transport links, the workers were not forced to live in the Batey.

Hershey later bought Centrales Rosario (1920), Carmen , San Antonio (1925) and Jesús María (1927) to expand its cultivation and production capacities . In 1946, a year after the founder's death, the Hershey Holdings in Cuba were sold to the Cuban Atlantic Sugar Company . After the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the sugar mills were expropriated and nationalized and named after the rebel leader Camilo Cienfuegos .

In 2002 the sugar factory was closed. The historical place is largely in ruins today.

Movies

  • Milton Hershey's Cuba , 2013, documentary by Ric Morris ( trailer )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Zeuske , A Little History of Cuba , C.-H. Beck, 3rd edition, 2007, p. 81

Coordinates: 23 ° 7 ′ 46 ″  N , 81 ° 56 ′ 31 ″  W.