Kissing Tower is an observation tower ride manufactured by Waagner Biro AG and sold to Hersheypark in 1973 by Intamin. Kissing Tower opened in 1975, and It immediately became one of Hersheypark’s most iconic rides. Kissing Tower has operated most every season the park has been open in the years since.

Gyro 1200 Tower

Waagner Biro AG, a steel engineering partnership based in Vienna, Austria, manufactured several types of observational towers of varying heights and styles. One such observation tower was called a Gyro Tower.

The Gyro Tower is an elevator ride which gives people panoramic views of the area which it’s built. These became a focal point of amusement park design in the early 1970s, mostly thanks to the contributions of the R. Duell and Associates (RDA) architecture firm who utilized them in the parks they designed.

Waagner Biro was not a direct seller. Instead, their amusement rides were sold by a consortium of sellers called Intamin, an abbreviation of “INTernational AMusement INstallations.” The most common models sold were the Gyro 1000 and Gyro 1200 Towers. Intamin no longer sells these towers, but they continue to sell a Super Gyro Tower.

The first gyro tower was built in Carowinds, Charlotte, North Carolina / Fort Mill, South Carolina in 1973. Kissing Tower is the fifth gyro tower and the third Gyro 1200 Tower constructed.

Developing Kissing Tower

A tower observation ride was part of the original five phase plan of renovating Hersheypark into a modern theme park. The original location for the ride in the master drawing for the five phase RDA plan was for it to be installed approximately where Overlook Restaurant and Twizzlers Twisted Gravity is today. It would have been built next to a new restaurant that would have had a waterfall feature built underneath it (similar to Falling Water in western Pennsylvania).

Hersheypark purchased the Gyro 1200 ride in 1973 and had a cabin custom-designed for the park. However, due to economic challenges from the 1973 Oil Crisis, the five phase plan was modified and the remaining phases were eliminated.

Many plans were scuttled, including building Kissing Tower. Because the ride was already purchased, it was delivered to Hersheypark at the same time the Sky Ride was installed. Nevertheless, park management decided to place Kissing Tower into storage, while Sky Ride would debut for the 1974 season.

Approval to build Kissing Tower

Hersheypark management began considering what to do for the 1975 season. They quickly focused on redeveloping the old main entrance area of the park. They chose this over redeveloping the old Penny Arcade and restaurant – the first building built in Hersheypark. This became the 1975 Expansion of Hersheypark. It would include a new theme region, Tower Plaza, and 3 new rides: Kissing Tower, Twin Turnpike and Himalaya.

The engineering team at Hersheypark obtained necessary approvals to build Kissing Tower from state and Federal authorities. These approvals included ones from the PA Department of Labor and Industry Elevator Division and the Federal Aviation Administration. Kissing Tower would of course require a red blinking light on the top of the tower.

The Board of Directors for Hershey Entertainment & Resorts (then, Hershey Estates) formally approved the Hersheypark expansion project. This occurred on October 18, 1974. The cost of building Kissing Tower was $880,000 at the time of approval.

Getting a building permit

The plans were then submitted to Derry Township to receive approval from the township to build the large ride. The township needed to investigate two primary concerns.

First was the zoning of the area the ride was to be installed in. It wasn’t immediately clear if that area of the park was zoned as industrial or commercial. This was a concern because the township had a building height limit of 40 feet in commercial zones. The park would have to request an exemption to the height limit before getting approved.

The second concern was whether the tower would meet building code specifications. In 1972, Derry Township adopted BOCA building codes as its construction standards. This means anything receiving a building permit would need to follow BOCA. BOCA’s full name is Building Officials and Code Administrators International, Inc. and they were from Chicago, Illinois. Today BOCA is known as the International Code Council.

The concern from the township was down to translation. Much of the written documents for the Gyro Tower 1200 were written in German and French. The plans and materials were sent to BOCA. They needed to review the plans due to this and the ride’s inherent complexity.

Hersheypark heard back from the township on November 19, 1974. They got the go ahead to build the Kissing Tower.

Derry Township building official Thomas E. Mitchell commented, “We found that the tower site is well within the industrial zone, so there is no zoning issues involved. Once BOCA gives its final report on the plans, we will be in a position to issue a building permit. We informed Hersheypark officials of the questions and they provided the answers needed, so once BOCA completes its review, we will receive a report. Since BOCA seemed satisfied on the major structural aspects of the plans, we should be issuing a building permit very shortly.”

The building permit was issued several days later.

Building Kissing Tower

Construction commenced on Monday, December 23, 1974. Kissing Tower began to go vertical around January 20, 1975.

In March, Hersheypark received a building permit for a $102,000 addition to the Kissing Tower project. That brought the cost of Kissing Tower up to $982,000.

Of the Intamin staff to work on the Kissing Tower project, one was Hubert Reithmaier, who went on to work on other projects including the installation of Jet Star at Knoebels.

Tallest structure in Central Pennsylvania

Upon completion of the Kissing Tower, it became the tallest structure in Central Pennsylvania. Other tall structures in the region included the now defunct Gettysburg National Tower (307 feet) and The Pennsylvania Capitol (272 feet). Today, the tallest building in Central Pennsylvania is 333 Market Street in Harrisburg (341 feet), built in 1979.

First ride

Kissing Tower took off for its inaugural ride on Sunday, May 18, 1975. A dedication ceremony was held for the occasion, featuring the Milton Hershey School band and the Hershey Chocolatiers Drum and Bugle Corps. It was a highly anticipated event which would be surpassed only two years later when sooperdooperLooper opened. As the Kissing Tower ascended for its first ride, hundreds of balloons were released to float up along with the cabin.

Dignitaries who rode on the first ride include:

• Ned Book, President and Chairman of Hershey Entertainment & Resorts
• Former president Arthur Whiteman
• Vice President J Bruce McKinney
• Park General Manager Paul Serff

Officers and board members of:

• Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Company
• The Hershey Company (then Hershey Foods Corporation)
• Hershey Trust Company

And:

• Derry Township Supervisors and managers

The First Kissing Tower Wedding

On June 20, 1975, Wayne Barr and LeAnne Hatfield were married on the Kissing Tower. Hatfield worked in Hersheypark as an assistant to the Mark Wilson Magic Show during the 1974 park season. Barr was a bridge inspector for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. They decided to have their wedding at the Kissing Tower after Tom Cantone, then Assistant Entertainment Manager for Hersheypark, made an offer to Hatfield. The wedding was officiated by Reverend Gregg Smith of Quentin United Church of Christ. A band called The Challengers, booked by Hersheypark, performed for the wedding.

Hersheypark called this event the Kissing Tower Wedding.

When the wedding parties arrived in Hersheypark, both the bride and groom rode the Sky Ride to get to the Kissing Tower. Barr rode in the Tamaqua Coal car. When the married couple rode back to Rhineland, they rode in Car 13.

The couple was married while the Kissing Tower cabin was at the top of the tower, rotating longer than a standard ride. Reverend Smith was one of the first people off the ride when the ceremony ended. He said, “I was getting dizzy, but it was great. I never felt so close to God.”

The Second Kissing Tower Wedding

On May 11, 1986, the second wedding on Kissing Tower occurred. Jere Meyer, an employee of H.B. Reese Company (a division of The Hershey Company) and Judy Long were married. Jere suggested getting married in the Tower, which Long thought was a joke at first. She agreed because she thought why not and that the view was awesome. Meyer thought it was a very romantic thing to do, but he would only try it if she was willing.

The reaction from friends and family ranged from Long’s mother thinking they were crazy, to some people questioning why they had had to pay to enter to the park just to see them get married.

The wedding was officiated by District Justice William Rathfon of Hershey, a long time judge for Derry Township. The ceremony was 20 minutes starting at 11am. Taped music included traditional wedding music and the song “The Search is Over,” by Survivor. Approximately 50 guests were in attendance, while another 150 park guests watched from the ground. Reaction to the wedding afterwards was very positive, that it was very beautiful and terrific. The reception after the wedding ceremony was at The Hotel Hershey.

Note: It was reported that this was actually the third wedding at the Kissing Tower, but there is only record of the two in this article. To learn more about all of the weddings in Hersheypark – because there have been more than you think – read here.

Updates to Kissing Tower

From 1985 into the late 1990s, the queue line for Kissing Tower featured in-park television called Hersheypark Audience TV.

In 2007, when the park was celebrating its centennial, 100 Years and a Hershey Kiss were painted on to the side of the tower.

The queue line was changed in the 2010s as the rear exit of the cabin was utilized less and less. The exit was redone so guests would exit through the front of the cabin, and the queue line, which originally were two lines that joined into one, became one single line. The ride has experienced some down time as its aged, and some significant work was done on the Kissing Tower in the mid 2010s.

The Flag

The first flag on the top of the Kissing Tower was first raised on May 26, 1975, at 7:30pm. The spire it was attached to extended the height of the tower an additional 70 feet. The flag itself was 20′ by 30′ and was manufactured by Hortie-Van Manufacturing Company from Pasadena, California.

Hortie-Van was best known as being the suppliers of many flags and banners in Disneyland. They also were suppliers for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, and the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena.

At the time, the flag available from Hortie-Van was the largest flag that could be purchased that wasn’t considered a kind of novelty for promotional purposes.

During the offseason a smaller flag would be hoisted onto the flagpole. This tradition continued until the early 2020s. Since then, the large flag has been flown throughout the entire year except during Hersheypark Christmas Candylane.

Christmas Candylane

In 1983, Hersheypark introduced its Candylane event. During this event, the flag would be taken down and a series of lights making a Christmas tree would be strung up on the flag pole. This has continued through the current year. The tree was even put up in 2020 when Kissing Tower was not operated that year due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Hersheypark Halloween

During the 2000 season of Hersheypark In The Dark, the flag was replaced with a series of lights making a jack-o-lantern. This was only done for this season.

2020 – now

Kissing Tower has operated in Hersheypark every season since it was installed except for all of 2020 and part of the 2021 season. Once Kissing Tower was reinspected in 2021 it was capable of reopening and has operated in every season since.

In April 2020, when Hersheypark would have been open if not for the pandemic, a strong wind storm blew out one of the windows of the Kissing Tower. Due to the pandemic, and the ride remaining closed, the window was replaced later in the year.

On May 18, 2025, Kissing Tower turned 50 years old. On that day it became the 17th ride that has operated in Hersheypark to turn 50. It also became the 14th currently existing ride in Hersheypark to be operating in the park for at least 50 years.

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