the Hershey Car Corral©

Story of the Car Corral held at Hershey
reference: excerpted from Hershey Region AACA

On February 8, 1955 , an organizational meeting and the twenty men and women who attended agreed to petition AACA to become a region. The charter was granted and the new Hershey Region was named host for the AACA Fall Meet held October 8 - 9 in the Hershey Stadium.  About 400 cars were entered for judging on Saturday. Seven vendors set up an array of parts for sale outside the stadium, thus the flea market was born. Volunteers from the new region registered the cars, arranged for judging, scheduled an early Sunday morning breakfast run followed by afternoon activities.   
                
For the rest of the decade, more of the activities that are still part of the Hershey Fall Meet were instituted. The few Parts Peddlers, as they were called then, were invited inside the Stadium in 1958 and, if sales warranted it, were asked for a few dollars Shuttle buses were first provided in 1959. 

 1960 was the Silver Jubilee Meet in celebration of AACA's 25th Anniversary.  With 891 vehicles registered, this was proclaimed the largest gathering of old cars held anywhere in the world.  This year, the flea market vendors outgrew their space in the Stadium and moved to the road between the stadium and the car field. 

 In 1961, the car registration jumped to 924 which could not be accommodated inside the stadium.  They were moved to an adjacent field for judging.   By now, the road between the stadium and the field was a carnival of flea market vendors, which spilled over onto the field alongside the road.   
     
At the ten-year mark, 1965, the Hershey Region hosted about 35,000 visitors.  Almost 1,100 cars were registered and 336 vendors were in the flea market. Everything kept growing in the next five years.  A record of 1,186 cars were  judged in 1968 and it seems that record held for a long time. 
 
The Hershey Fall meet, during the 70s, hosted more and more vendors and visitors while show car registration remained at about 1,000.  In 1971 2,904 flea market spaces were set up.  In 1972, the year of the big flood, things didn't slow down much.  People were arriving in their campers and flying planes into the Hershey Airport (which is now the White Field). The Red Field was added in 1974 and this was the first year for bus tours.  The next few years there was rain which, at times, created ankle-deep mud but bad weather didn't deter the crowds. The first amateur night for the flea market vendors was initiated in 1978.   In 1979, 900 cars were registered for the show and over 5,300 spaces in the flea market were filled.  
 
In 1981, the Hershey show grew to cover 80 acres.  The flea market was divided into Red and Blue fields.  An all-time high of 463 judges were required to go over 1,250 cars.  Sunday games were resumed after a 5-year hiatus. Show car and vendor numbers were growing so large, registration was becoming unmanageable.    During 1981-82, two Hershey members established a standard operating procedure to standardize all the steps required in setting up the meet.  In 1984 the Chocolate Field was opened.  By 1985, AACA celebrated their 50th anniversary while Hershey Region celebrated their 25th.  An all-time high of over 2100 show cars were registered that year and the Hershey Meet was considered the largest antique automobile meet in America and perhaps in the world. The Green field was added in 1989, expanding the flea market by 4,000 spaces.  By now, the Car Corral was growing by leaps and bounds.  The 80's closed with 2,009 cars being judged and 10,286 flea market spaces

In 1990, it took over 600 tons of crushed stone to fight the mud. By now, Hershey was truly an international event with visitors from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy Japan, Mexico, Portugal, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland . 

 Rain was a factor in the first three years of the 90s, but the flea market vendors still came in droves. In 1996, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held to dedicate the land along Route 39 for the  future AACA Museum and for the Hershey Region Headquarters.  In honour of the 100th anniversary of the automobile in America, a car representing each year from 1904 to 1971 was displayed in the Stadium.
 
Some statistics were compiled in 1997: A total of 1,722 show cars, judged by 600 judges were displayed on 15 acres; the 10,425 vendors took up four flea market fields covering 134 acres; and  the car corral covered 15 acres.  Camper parking took up another 15 acres, 10 acres for show car trailer parking and 107 acres for public parking.  The Hershey Meet took over a total of 296 acres.

The car corral was moved to the Hershey Outlet Mall parking lot in 2002 then over to the Giant Center parking lot in 2003. Because of space restrictions, the registration numbers have remained pretty steady for the last few years.

Видео the Hershey Car Corral© канала Peter Pronych