Hershey Civic Center

C. Emlen Urban had designed Milton Hershey's stable in Lancaster in 1891 and appears to have advised Hershey at various times during the industrialist's career. This project began as a collaboration between the brilliant classicist Cret and Urban in 1916, but the entry of the United States into World War I and the resulting rise in steel prices caused Hershey to put the civic center with its theater on hold. Fifteen years later, in the depths of the Great Depression, Hershey took advantage of the drop in steel prices while also keeping his building crew employed by returning to the project. The resulting theater clad in limestone and with the appearance of a Florentine palazzo has none of the look of the American modern that had transformed theaters in the 1920s. Instead it is very much a pre–World War I building, insistent on its learned detail but with an effect that is nonetheless remarkable. Three limestone-clad wings frame a central court that leads into a brilliant lobby and theater. Still much in use, it is part of the continuation of Hershey's idyllic world.