When a Pittsburgher went to Chicago to beat France
Did you know the Ferris wheel was invented by someone living in Pittsburgh? The American civil engineer responsible for creating the original, magnificent Ferris Wheel for the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition was George Washington Gale Ferris, a North Side resident who lived at 1318 Arch Street, now one of the city of Pittsburgh’s designated historical buildings.
Born in Illinois in 1859, Ferris earned an engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. After graduation he designed railroad bridges, trestles and tunnels, until in 1885, he joined the Kentucky and Indiana Bridge Company of Louisville. There he was in charge of testing iron and steel bought from Pittsburgh steel mills.
He founded G.W.G. Ferris & Co. with several RPI graduates in Pittsburgh as inspection engineers for industrial sites. In 1886, he married Margaret Ann Beatty of Canton, Ohio, and moved to the North Side.
Better than the Eiffel Tower
In 1889, French architect Alexandre Gustave Eiffel had designed the monumental Eiffel Tower for the Exposition Universelle, better known as the Paris World’s Fair. In the United States, organizerswere planning the upcoming 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exhibition to commemorate the 400th anniversary ofColumbus’s landing in America
They wanted an attraction which would match the Eiffel Tower and showcase American engineering. In 1891, Ferris attended a banquet in Chicago where the exhibition’s director of works challenged a group of top Americanengineers to “Make no little plans.”
Little plans “have no magic to stir men’s blood,” Daniel H. Burnham said. Eiffel himself had proposed a design for tower similar to the one in Paris. American engineers wanted it to be “the result of American genius, something novel,original, daring and unique.”
Ferris, explained Paul Durica, director of exhibitions at the Chicago History Museum, was talking with other engineers about the project, when the idea came to him of “building a monster wheel.” As Ferris described it, “I got some paper and began sketching. Before dinner was over, I had sketched out almost the entire detail exactly as it stands present in the Midway Plaisance.”
His colleges thought his idea was crazy and said the huge wheel would collapse. He became known as “The man with wheels in his head.” The organizers thought his proposal was lacking in feasibility, time and money,” Durica added.
But Ferris persisted, answering any doubts about his design, acting asa “financial hustler,” said Durica, who worked “to amass the needed funds, and showing how it can be all done within a tight timeline — one made tighter by the Committee first granting a concession, revoking it, and then giving it back with only four and a half months until the opening .”
Fast work
Ferris had to work fast. Several different shops were chosen to fabricate more than 100,000 parts for the wheel.
Back then, Chicago was experiencing one of its most severe winters and the ground at the construction site was frozen three feet deep. A power plant was built outside of the grounds and steam was pumped in to thaw the ground to keep the concrete footings from freezing. Pileswere driven in at 32 feet.
The 89,320 pound axle forged by the Bethlehem Iron Company in Pittsburgh arrived on March 18, 1893. The company had made creating this axle, the biggest piece of steel ever forged, a priority. Completing it so quickly and doing it so well gave the company a public relations boost.
The axle was set into place on top of the 140 feet high towers, followed by the assembly of the actual wheel. One 1000 hp reversible engine fed by steam would drive the wheel, while a Westinghouse air brake controlled its rotation. A second engine was ready in case of emergency.
The Exposition opened on May 1, 1893 as the steelworkers kept assembling Ferris’s wheel. The crowds watched as the first of 36 cars were hung on June 10th. Each car weighed 26,000 pounds and was 24 feet long, 13 feet wide and 10 feet high. Each could hold 60 passengers for a total of 2,160 passengers at a time.
With six cars hung, Margaret Ferris and Daniel Burnham arrived on June 11 to take a trial trip on the 264-foot wheel, which was about the height of a 26-story building .
On June 21, about eight weeks after the Chicago Exhibition opened, the Ferris Wheel made its debut. Two-thousand people gathered at 3:30 p.m. for the event.
Ferris said he “had gotten the wheels out of his head and made them a living reality” and he hoped “the giant wheel might be thought worthy to stand as a representative of the skill and daring of American engineers.” Then Ferris blew a golden whistle which signaled the rotation of the wheel.
A total of 1.4 million people experienced the 20-minute, two revolutions ride which cost 50 cents, one of the fair’s most expensive concessions, and at night, the wheel was illuminated by 3,000 of Edison’s new incandescent lights.
Ferris’ wheel was a huge success and earned $725,000. But after the Exhibition closed, Ferris was entangled in lawsuits from money the fair owed him and debts he owed suppliers. Suffering from typhoid fever and bankrupt, he died on Nov. 22, 1896 at the age of 37 in Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh.
In 1904, the wheel moved to the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in St. Louis. After the fair closed the wheel was considered as an attraction for Coney Island, but the negotiations never materialized.
Dismantling and reassembling the gigantic wheel would be an arduous and expensive task. In 1906, after the Louisianna Exhibition, it was dynamited and sold for scrap metal.
Ferris’s enduring legacy
Eventhough the original wheel no longer exists, Ferris’ legacy endures worldwide in wheels like London’s London Eye; Japan’s Cosmo Clock 21, and the United Arab Emirates’ 820-foot high Ain Dubai. The Las Vegas strip boasts the 550 foot High Roller and the Centennial Wheel at Navy Pier in Chicago is modeled after Ferris’ original wheel.
Locally, the Ferris wheel has been a huge part of Kennywood’s history. The first wheel arrived in 1903. A new one built by C.W. Parker was added in 1927. A 1940s wheel replaced the aging 1927 wheel. Then in 1959, two large Eli Bridge Company Wheels stood side by side. Lastly, in 1986 the Wonder Wheel was installed and removed after the 1999 season.
The Chicago Tribune called the Wheel “beyond all question the crowning novelty of the Exposition,” maybe a greater structure than the Eiffel Tower, Durica said. “It has the element of motion” and “presents engineering difficulties with which man never before grappled.”
“That it was constructed so quickly and functioned so well remains a marvel,” the newspaper declared. “The Ferris Wheel is an American icon and deservedly so.”