WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. (AP) — Bill Harmsen, philanthropist and co-founder of the Jolly Rancher Candy Co., died Wednesday of prostate cancer. He was 89.
Harmsen and his wife, Dorothy, founded the Jolly Rancher in 1949 in Golden, Colo., and turned the fruit-flavored hard candies into a staple across the nation and the world.
The family sold the company in 1967 to Beatrice Foods, which sold it to Illinois-based Leaf in 1983, but the Harmsens continued to operate it. Bill Harmsen retired in 1977.
Hershey Foods of Hershey, Pa., the nation's largest candy maker, bought Jolly Rancher in 1997.
The Harmsens bought thousands of pieces of Western art over four decades and donated the collection to the Denver Art Museum in May. The collection, whose value was not revealed, contains work by Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, George Catlin, N.C. Wyeth and Robert Henri.
In the 1960s, the Harmsens donated much of the land that became Golden Gate Canyon State Park.