The Wheel the George Ferris Built

The Wheel the George Ferris Built

The first ferris wheel was designed by George W. Ferris, a bridge-builder from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ferris began his career in the railroad industry and then pursued an interest in bridge building. He understood the growing need for structural steel, Ferris founded G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh, a firm that tested and inspected metals for railroads and bridge builders.  Finding a suitable design proved difficult: Architect Daniel H. Burnham, who was in charge of selecting the project for the Chicago World's Fair, complained at an engineer's banquet in 1891 about having found nothing that "met the expectations of the people". Among the audience was George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., owner of a firm that tested iron and steel. He had an inspiration and scribbled the design for the Ferris Wheel on a napkin during the dinner.  It was considered an engineering wonder: two 140-foot steel towers supported the wheel; they were connected by a 45-foot axle, the largest single piece of forged steel ever made up until that time. The wheel section had a diameter of 250 feet and a circumference of 825 feet. Two 1000-horsepower reversible engines powered the ride. Thirty-six wooden cars held up to sixty riders each. The ride cost fifty cents and made $726,805.50 during the World's Fair.

He built the Ferris Wheel for the 1893 World's Fair, which was held in Chicago to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's landing in America. The Chicago Fair's organizers wanted something that would rival the Eiffel Tower. Gustave Eiffel had built the tower for the Paris World's Fair of 1889, which honored the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. When George Gale Ferris built his first wheel he probably never dreamed of the trend he was starting. However, his wheel was huge, and certainly not very portable.  The original Ferris Wheel was destroyed in 1906.  It took The Eli Bridge Company to develop a practical, portable wheel. 

The Big Ferris Wheel

It Is the Chief Sensation of the World's Fair.
Inventor Declared a Genius.
When He First Broached His Plans to the Directors of the World's Fair
They Thought He Was Crazy--
A Description of the Wheel
As It Stands in Midway Plaisance.

From The Alleghenian, 1 July 1893.
World's Fair, June 28.-- Special. By Robert Graves.
There is nothing in the World's Columbian exposition that compares in genuine novelty and sensationalism with the great vertical wheel which stands in the very center of Midway plaisance. In these letters I long ago predicted that this giant structure would be the chief sensation of the World's fair, just as the Eiffel tower was the chief sensation of the Paris exposition, and my prediction has been verified. Though the wheel has been in operation to the public but a few days, vast crowds of people constantly surround it watching its movements, and thousands more pay their half dollar apiece for the privilege of going around upon it.

Considered from the engineering standpoint as well as from that of popular interest this is a greater marvel than the Eiffel tower, which earned a great reputation for its builder and a small fortune for its owners. Whereas the Eiffel tower was simply a bridge a thousand feet long erected upon a strong foundation and placed on end, a simple construction like a couple of Chicago's tall steel buildings stood one upon the other and resting upon a tall foundation of sufficient strength to hold them, the vertical wheel is a bridge 825 feet long, 30 feet wide and constructed of steel, twisted into a circle and hung upon an axle round which it revolves by means of the force given it by powerful steam engines. The Eiffel tower involved no new engineering principle, and when finished was a thing dead and lifeless. The wheel, on the other hand, has movement, grace, the indescribable charm possessed by a vast body in action.

What the genesis of the vertical wheel was in the brain of its inventor is an interesting thought. Undoubtedly it had its origin in the horizontal merry-go-round, and that started in the whirligig which country boys used to make with a post and a plank set across the top of it, pinioned at its middle. From the whirligig to the flying horses or merry-go-round was but a step. The merry-go-round has had its greatest development at the sea shore resorts of Coney Island and Atlantic city. At the latter place the owner of the merry-go-round owns also a good share of the town. The nimble nickels flowing into his coffers in an uninterrupted stream all summer long have enabled him to buy no end of corner lots and erect brick blocks thereon.

Some one saw that the horizontal wheel was coining money and concluded to go it one better by building a vertical wheel. There are vertical wheels at the sea shore, and some of their kind have been brought to the World's fair and may be seen outside the fair gates taking passengers round at the old rate of a nickel a ride. These small vertical wheels must have been the suggestion to Ferris, the bridge builder and engineer. He said he would build a wheel that would astonish the world, and by the side of the little wheels of the sea shore be as the ocean itself to a mill pond.

He prepared his plans and came to Chicago to ask permission to erect his wheel within the World's fair grounds. At first the fair directors only laughed at him. They thought he was crazy, that he was a crank. Then they granted him a concession, but without any thought that he would ever build his wheel. After a time they concluded that it was not wise to bother themselves further with such a visionary individual, and they cancelled the concession. They were not going to have a wild-eyed man with wheels in his head lumbering up the center of the plaisance with his contraptions. But Ferris, confident of success and backed by ample capital, stuck to the scheme and induced the directors, after a time, to again reconsider their action and again permit him to go ahead. This is the brief history of the struggle this genius had to secure recognition even from such progressive and wide-awake men as the directors of the World's fair. Such has been the history of genius ever.

It is almost impossible either by picture or description in words to give you an idea of what this wheel is like. A mere statement of its dimensions, 250 feet in diameter, 825 feet in circumference, 30 feet broad and weight more than 4,000 tons, does not mean much to the average mind. It may help the reader to understand what the structure is like if I say that the highest point of the wheel is as far from the ground as the top of one ten-story building would be if it were put on the roof of another building of equal height.

When you look at this wheel as it stands on the plaisance you are struck by the resemblance it bears to some mighty bicycle. It has the same sort of a hub, the same rods and struts running therefrom to the periphery, the same light airiness [of] model. In truth, it seems too light. One fears the slender rods which must support the whole enormous weight are too puny to fulfill their office. One cannot avoid the thought of what would happen if a high wind should come sweeping across the prairie and attack this structure broadside. Would the thin rods be sufficient to sustain not only the enormous weight of the structure and that of the 2,000 passengers who might chance to be in the cars but the pressure of the wind as well? Engineer Ferris says the wheel is strong enough to do all this. Other engineers, some of them men of eminence in their profession, say the same thing. Therefore the public seems content to take it for granted that the wheel is not only the greatest novelty of the age, but that riding upon it is as safe as riding over a bridge that is placed horizontally on masonry piers.

There are thirty-six cars on the wheel. Each is 27 feet long, 9 feet high and 13 feet broad. It is like an enormous bird cage. Human beings are to be the inhabitants. The doors are closed when the passengers are within, and locked. The windows are covered with a strong wire netting. There is a conductor to each car to look after the comfort of the passengers. No crank will have an opportunity commit suicide from this wheel, no hysterical woman shall jump from a window. From platforms built on the ground six cars are loaded at one time. Each car will seat, on revolving chairs, forty passengers. Therefore the thirty-six cars will seat 1,440 passengers. But with standing room occupied the wheel has a capacity of 2,000 persons.

As soon as the first six cars are loaded the man in charge gives the signal and the steam is turned into cylinders of the thousand horse-power engine which moves the vast machine. Slowly, with just enough trembling and oscillating to make the nerves of passengers quiver, the wheel must make one entire revolution. By this time the occupants of the coaches have become somewhat accustomed to the novel situation. They have ceased to think of the possible danger and are occupied with the beauty of the panorama which lies far below them.

Now comes the most interesting feature of the trip. The wheel is set in motion at a more rapid pace, though still not very fast, and is not stopped until a complete revolution is made. It is an indescribable sensation, that of revolving through such a vast orbit in a bird cage, that of swinging in a circle far out over the plaisance in one direction, then turning in the other direction, and still higher, and finally beginning the descent from such a great height. People wonder what would happen if the pinions which hold the cars through their roofs should break, or refuse to revolve. They wonder how they would get down if the machinery should break and the engineer be unable to further revolve the wheel, thus leaving them dangling in mid air. While they are thinking of these things the movement ceases, then starts up again, and finally it becomes their turn to step out on the wooden platform and down again to mother earth.

I have no desire to advertise the wheel when I tell you a trip upon it is worth taking. You cannot advertise the wheel, anyway, any more than you can advertise the fair, or the Atlantic ocean. They are all too big. They are their own advertisement. The novel sensation, the opportunity to study a great engineering work, the beauty of the scene presented from the great altitude, all combine to make the trip on this structure fully worth the time and the cost.

As yet there is not the slightest reason to fear the safety of the machine. The steel towers which support the vast bicycle wheel are bedded and bolted into thirty feet of concrete. They are calculated to support five times the weight and the wind pressure produced by a tornado of a hundred and fifty miles an hour. Motion is imparted to the mass by means of huge cogs in which a link belt fits. If anything should break and it be desirable to stop the machinery there is a powerful brake operated by compressed air. The axle which runs from the top of one tower to the other, 140 feet in the air, is the greatest steel forging ever made, being 82 inches in diameter and 45 feet long, weighing fifty-six tons. How Ferris ever got it up there is a mystery to me, but he did it. The cars are so attached to the wheel, it is said, that it is impossible for them to fail to turn so as to preserve the center of gravity.

What is the principle, the chief principle, on which the wheel is constructed? It is that of a bicycle wheel, as I have said, except that this wheel does not rest upon the surface but depends from the steel axle. The lower half of the wheel simply hangs from the mighty axle, and this lower half supports the upper half by means of the steel framework of its two rims. That is the whole thing in a nut shell. The wheel, though apparently rigid in its construction, has just enough elasticity to make this method of support possible, and yet not enough elasticity to produce any appreciable trembling or slipping effect.

Now the World's fair directors are glad they changed their minds and decided to recognize this genius. Not only have they thereby secured the greatest sensation of the fair, but without a dollar of outlay on their part have made certain of an enormous revenue. The exposition gets one-half the earnings of the wheel, and it is estimated the total receipts will average something like $10,000 a day during the remainder of the summer. The cost of the wheel complete, was about $250,000. Engineer Ferris is likely to reap a rich reward for his boldness and enterprise.

266 Feet in Air:

The Ferris Wheel Turns and Mrs. Ferris Gives a Toast:
Her Husband's Health and the Wheel's Success--
Two Carloads of More or Less Nervous Guests Join Her in Drinking It.

From the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, 17 June 1893.
Special to the Commercial Gazette.
Chicago, June 16.--Standing on a chair in a car swaying 266 feet above the earth a little woman raised a glass of champagne to her lips and drank to the health of her husband. The little woman looked wonderfully pretty. Her eyes shone with the light of love and wifely pride. She smiled sweetly at those in the cars beneath her and they cheered wildly for her and her husband. She was dressed in a dainty gown of black, trimmed with gold. She said softly as she made the toast:
"To the health of my husband and the success of the Ferris wheel."
She wasn't a bit afraid as she stood there, and that alone shows the immense amount of faith she must have in George W. S.[sic] Ferris, both as husband and mechanical engineer. Her black eyes sparkled deliciously as she made the toast and the bright color shown in her cheeks and the mist-laden wind played tenderly with her dark curls.
It was 6:15 o'clock last night when the great 1,000-horse power engine underneath the Ferris wheel began to throb slowly. A car resembling a large street car without wheels was swung up to the first entrance landing at the east approach to the wheel. First two big hampers of champagne and boxes of cigars were carried into the car and placed on the tables.

Some Were Timid.
Then two-score invited guests filed in, their faces expressing all the emotions, ranging from pleased expectancy to a very palpable timidity. Then a second car was swung to the landing and more guests piled in. Some men with voices of marked huskiness shouted unintelligible orders to each other and the great wheel began to revolve for the first time.
It was 6:32 o'clock. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, it lifted the cars away from the earth, revolving from east to west. A fourth of the way up the wheel stopped. The passengers gasped in unison and looked at each other with smiles more or less sickly. They looked down and saw that they were hanging directly over the Austrian village. Suddenly they heard the regular throbbing of the engines again and felt much better.
The wheel climbed steadily upward and the passengers grew bolder. Some of them looked over the edge of the car and at once became less bold. In eight minutes the wheel had completed the first quarter of the circle. In seven minutes more the loaded cars had measured half the circumference and hung 266 feet above the earth.
Again the engines stopped and the champagne was poured. All in the two cars drank standing to George W. S.[sic] Ferris, Mrs. Ferris proposing the toast and calling it across to those in the next car. Then all gave three cheers to the inventor and drank to the health of his pretty wife with immense enthusiasm.

Enjoy the View.
Then more cheers were given, more wine was drunk, some impromptu congratulatory speeches were made, and the guests, just a trifle hysterical from the excitement and the unwonted nervous strain, turned to enjoy the view. Looking to the north and west they saw the great majestic city lying beneath them shimmering in the rays of the setting sun and radiant in the foliage of early summer. The ever-present pall of smoke hung low over the spires and housetops to the north, but was slowly receding before the soft evening breeze. Directly beneath was the wonderful panorama of the Midway Plaisance, black with its seething, world-garnered population, flashing with the mingled glow of colored lights and gay banners.
Faintly there came to the ears the sound of many kinds of music, now the plaintive wailing of an Arab's flute or the dull, monotonous pounding of a Turk's tamtam. Again one heard the majestic strains of a German national hymn. It was an impressive almost weird scene, a memorable experience, this looking down for the first time on this wondrous street teeming with thousands swept by the breath of the effort of the ages into this narrow lane and there living and moving in careless gayety for a summer's holiday.

City of Palaces.
To the east was the wonderful city of glistening palaces, whose shadows stretched far out into the heaving waters. It was like the dreams of the biblical prophets who saw in their reveries the nations of the earth come together in mighty concourse and to whom the glories of heaven were revealed.
Of the marvelous mechanism by which this great picture was disclosed to men it is enough to say that its cost was $400,000, that the axle on which the beam turns weighs 140,000 pounds and is the largest piece of steel ever cast in one piece. The entire weight of the wheel and its mechanism is [4,800] tons as is moved by two engines of 1,000-horse power each. Over 2,100 persons may make the trip at one time. The formal opening of the wheel to the public will take place Wednesday next with a program of speeches and music.

George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.

Born: February 14, 1859 Galesburg, Illinois (1859-02-14)
Died: November 22, 1896 (aged 37) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

George Ferris was a construction engineer who worked on railroad tunnels and bridges, eventually establishing his own Ferris & Company, and becoming a recognized expert in such construction. In 1892, Daniel H. Burnham, who was then planning the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, expressed his desire to build something "original, daring and unique" for the fair, to rival the Eiffel Tower, which had been built for the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. Ferris responded by proposing the "observation wheel", an enormous circular ride, but Burnham's planning committee rejected it for its cost and their uncertainty about its safety. Burnham himself said that the gigantic device would be too rickety to withstand strong winds off Lake Michigan. Ferris, undaunted, took his plans to several Chicago architects and engineers, and returned to the committee with several expert testimonials to the design's safety -- and $400,000 in his own financing for the project.

Construction ran behind schedule, and the Fair was open for a month and a half before the Wheel was finished. Ferris and his wife were the first passengers, along with the city's Mayor and a 40-piece band. The Wheel began selling tickets on June 21, 1893, and crowds that could not afford the 50 cent fare were awestruck just watching. It was the centerpiece of the fairgrounds -- 264 feet tall, carrying three dozen railway-car-sized gondolas, each of which could seat 40 passengers with standing room for twenty more, for a dizzying twenty-minute ride to altitudes most people had never been. The axle weighed more than 46 tons, and was at the time the largest single piece of steel ever forged. About 1,500,000 passengers rode the wheel, which operated without any safety problems for the duration of the Chicago fair.

But the late completion and unexpected expenses ate into the Wheel's income. After the fair closed Ferris sued for what he felt was his rightful share of the profits from the machine, but lost. Even while the case was in court, smaller versions of his Wheels were built -- without payment to Ferris -- at Coney Island and other amusement parks across America. His wife left him in 1896 and he died a few months later, some say by suicide. He was 37 years old and on the brink of bankruptcy. His remains were cremated and held at the crematorium pending payment of the bill. Some sources say the account was settled and ashes claimed by one of Ferris's brothers, more than a year after his death.