Pilgrimage to Chocolatown

In 1905, Milton Hershey built a chocolate factory in south central Pennsylvania. Over the next few years he built a model town around it, and began construction of an amusement park. Fifty years later, the newly-chartered Hershey Region of the Antique Automobile Club of America held their first National Fall Meet at Hershey. It rained, and a quarter of the cars left.

Weather has been a regular curse of the Hershey meet ever since, although in good years the autumnal sun of Indian summer makes browsing the 10,000 vendor spaces and 1,500+ car auto show an aficionado's delight. If Beaulieu Autojumble is just what the doctor ordered, Hershey is an overdose.

The fiftieth anniversary Hershey Region meet (there was one earlier Hershey event hosted by another region) was true to tradition, with diluvian results. Before the rains came, however, there were two warm, partly cloudy days, sufficient to see at least a majority of the wares on sale. Those who came looking for cars could have chosen a nearly-original 1929 Cadillac Fleetwood cabriolet, a Franklin touring car, a Crosley Hotshot, a "heart-front" Brewster Ford, or a '40 Buick phaeton. Plymouth fanciers would have been too late for this '33 sedan, "SOLD" by the time we got there. Milk route followers liked this Divco, and project participants grooved on a 1915 Saxon chassis. For liliputians there were both an American Austin and a Bantam.

Probably the majority of Hersheygoers were looking for parts. For them there were trunks, hub caps, automobilia, engine blocks, even radio city. Some vendors were eclectic, others remarkably specific. While some vendors boasted of their years of attendance, buyers came with multiple generations. For 50 bucks you could have bought a 1924 Cad rad, but why? No part of it seemed usable.

The rains started early Friday morning. In past years, the whole meet would quickly turn to mud, but now much of the area is paved, and fewer than half the fields require assisted extrication. As the precipitation became more earnest, huddled masses took shelter. Some, like the Society of Automotive Historians, packed up early, retiring president Joe Freeman and Benz Award chairman Don Keefe appropriating table cloths for rain gear.

Friday evening gave welcome respite at the SAH awards banquet, where The Stanley Steamer: America's Legendary Steam Car received the prestigious Cugnot Award for the best book of 2004 in the field of automotive history.

By Saturday morning, however, the skies were still falling, with no relief promised for a week. I reluctantly hitched up my hacienda by dawn's early light and began my homeward trek.