The pictures from this post are older than dirt, so please excuse the quality and the composition—I was still in my early days of operating a camera! I grew up outside of Philly, and Hershey, Pennsylvania was only about an hour and a half away. Frequent trips were made to the park and chocolate factory as I was growing up.
This batch of pics were taken in December 1985, when one of my college friends flew out to visit. Naturally, Hershey was on the list of to-do’s for D-Tours. Shot #1 is the outside of “the factory;” at this point, I don’t even believe chocolate was produced here, and “the factory” was only for tourists to learn how chocolate was made.
On the Omnimover-like vehicle, you’d see models of the workers bagging up the cocoa beans:
Dirty-brown water standing in for chocolate:
The saaaaaame hershey kisses keep rotating on that belt all day long. Imagine my chagrin when I found out that they were fake!
Naturally at the end of the tour there were a few gift shops to blow your hard-earned money!
And heart-warming characters to put you in the Christmas mood:
Next to “the factory” was the park. To imagine what it was like, just think of a low-tech version of DCA’s Paradise Pier with chocolate aromas pumped in to keep you hungry. Yup...you get the picture. Still, for a day of fun and what it cost, it was worth the drive.
Hershey Park even had a Skyway!
See more Hershey Park photos at my main website.
8 comments:
summer fashions of the mid 1980's... oh the memories these pics bring back!
Do you know if the park still has it's "omnimover" factory tour attraction? Omnimovers rule!
This reminds me of the ride-thru brewery tour at Busch Gardens in Van Nuys, CA.
Chris - It's still there! Here's a link:
http://www.hersheys.com/chocolateworld/chocolate_tour.shtml
Love it! Believe it or not, I've been trying to get to Hershey Park for 4 years but something always comes up to change my plans!
Very cool, I spent several years living in Pennsylvania, and of course we went to Hershey Park regularly.
They used to sell these HUGE Hershey bars at the park, I think they were 11 pounds. I always kind of wanted one!
I would have been cruising you sooo hard on this field trip...yikes, those white jeans alone!
I went to Hershey Park several times in the early-80s (just 120 miles from my central NJ home) and was back there a couple years ago to do research on Hershey's participation at the 64 World's Fair (where a model of their new Hershey Park was a prominent exhibit). The visitor's center with the Omnimover ride was built around the late 60s or early 70s and likely was influenced by what they had seen Disney do at the Fair with their attractions and at the Disney parks in the late 60s. It replaced tours of the actual Hershey factory which is located elsewhere on the property and is no longer open to the public, so the visitors never actually saw the real chocolate making process taking place in that facility.
In addition to the Park and Visitors Center, there's also a fine museum exhibit on Milton Hershey and the community he established located in the old sports arena, which is where Wilt Chamberlain had his memorable 100 point basketball game (in the days when the NBA was such a minor league sport that the Philadelphia Warriors were required to play a number of their games in Hershey!)
Thank you for the link, Dave! Now I want to go check it out in person!
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