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Bill Harmsen was an American businessman, candy maker,
and co-founder, with his wife Dorothy, of the Jolly Rancher
Candy Company.
When Bill and Dorothy Harmsen failed to find great success farming their land,
the young couple established an ice cream shop.
Before long, they added homemade chocolates, jelly
beans, fruit chews, and lollipops. But is was their
familiar rectangular hard candy, the Jolly Rancher,
that brought them fame in the candy world. Fire Stix
was another of their more popular candy products.
In the early days, Bill Harmsen was frequently out
on the road marketing their candy, so it often fell
to Dorothy to manage Jolly Rancher operations in
Colorado. The company he founded in 1949, was sold
to Beatrice Foods in 1967, though Harmsen stayed
on as president until 1977. The Hershey Company,
purchased Jolly Rancher in 1996. Over time, the
fruit-flavored Jolly Rancher candies became a
favorite around the world.
He was also a generous philanthropist who donated
much of the land that became Golden Gate Canyon
State Park in Colorado. Harmsen and his wife were
also avid Western art collectors. They had collected
thousands of prestigious pieces by the time they
donated about 3,000 items, including 800 paintings,
to the Denver Art Museum in 2001. The collection,
which they amassed over four decades, included
major works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Frederic Remington,
N.C. Wyeth, Robert Henri and George Catlin, and
instantly made the museum's inventory of Western
art one of the most impressive in the country.
Dorothy Harmsen died in Denver of a heart attack,
August 29th, 2006, at the age of 91.
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