This is my regular Tuesday series about ride manufacturers who have made rides for Hersheypark. Today’s article is about Sellner Manufacturing Company.
Sellner Manufacturing Company, Inc., was a ride manufacturer based out of Faribault, Minnesota. The company was founded by Herbert W. Sellner in 1923, when Sellner created a water toboggan slide, and then began producing their most well known ride, Tilt-A-Whirl, in 1926. Sellner was acquired by Larson International, Inc., in 2011, when the Sellner family decided to exit the business. A restored Tilt-A-Whirl car sits on a corner in the town of Faribault, a reminder of the classic ride invented there.
Hersheypark purchased one ride from Sellner, Tilt-A-Whirl, in 1982. It was installed in Carrousel Circle in 1983, replacing the Monster. The description of the ride in a 1983 press release was:
NEW for Hersheypark’s 1983 season is a TILT-A-WHIRL on which courageous riders are flung around a circular track. The waved construction of the track causes each gondola, and its occupants, to tilt and whirl!
Tilt-A-Whirl was relocated to Comet Hollow in 1995, replacing the Chance Rides manufactured Rotor. Tilt-A-Whirl remained in this spot until 2011, when construction for Skyrush was beginning. The ride was relocated back to it’s original spot in Founder’s Circle (Carrousel Circle was renamed Founder’s Circle in 2005).
To read more about other ride manufacturers that have made rides for Hersheypark, click here.
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I am trying to research amusement ride companies to contact if possible for information or spec plans on some of the rides that were in use of the late 1940s to late 1950s and no later than about 1963. Can you help me out in finding internet connections on how to contact some of these companies.
I would like to find drawing plans to the rides so that I may scratch build some of the rides of those periods. I am into model train displays and running them at shows a few times a year. I am putting together a circus train as well. It would look real good to have a circus and carnival together on the layout.
I worked for 2 summers for a local company called GOODING AMUSEMENTS in the early 1970s. Mr Gooding operated a few parks in the central Ohio area for a long while. Two of the parks I remember was located at Buckeye Lake east of Columbus, and the other was the Columbus Zoo Park. His son wanted nothing to do with the business at the time of his death. His daughter took the business over and tried her best. She sought some help and the person that went in with her ran it into the ground and cheated her out of it. I wanted to take the old DODGEM CAR ride out, but he heard nothing of it. That ride was one of a few trailer mounted rides of it’s kind. You could run a small ride with 2 trailers or expand it up to 5 trailers. Each trailer carried 6 to 8 cars. All trailers had roof and floor section panels and center guard rails. The 2 trailers sections had to always be in it and they carried the stairs and transformer. The 2 trailers only had one side that folded down for the floor and a roof section fold up. One side each stayed up to for the ends of the ride. All had side sections slide out to form the fence. If needed and had the room for more, you can add any of the other trailers from 3 trailers to all 5 trailers. The center sections carried cars and both sides of the trailers folded down and up.
Sorry for a long reply.
Look forward to reading more of your history of the carnival rides.
Kenneth