O’Neil Ford

This tower was built in 1968 by O’Neil Ford, it was built in celebration of San Antonio’s 250th anniversary. There is a restaurant at the top of the tower and a viewing ledge to view the city from a height of 579 feet. Although the Seattle Space Needle was built prior to the Tower of the Americas, the Tower was still one of the first of it’s kind. The Dallas Reunion Tower followed the trend 3 years after the San Antonio Tower.

When I first visited San Antonio, I dismissed this tower as a copy of my hometown tower, the Reunion Ball, how wrong I was. The Tower of the Americas is by far the most impressive, because unlike other cities towers, the tower is a straight needle. The Seattle and Dallas towers both use complex designs to hold their top area up, however the San Antonio tower only needs a straight cylinder.