Posted
on February 14, 2014
 |
| The original Ferris Wheel. |
My
two favorite “Ferris”s are the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off
and the amusement park rides. I bet you can tell from
one glance at this page which Ferris we are talking about today!
George
Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., was the American engineer who created
the original Ferris Wheel for the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian
Exposition.
Before
the wheel that made his name famous, George Ferris worked in the
railroad industry and with bridge building. He started his own
company to inspect metals for railroads and bridges.
Ferris
went to Chicago when he heard news of the planned expo—and when he
heard about a contest for engineers. Several years before the Eiffel
Tower had been built for the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. The
directors of the World's Columbian Exposition challenged American
engineers to design a monument that would surpass the Eiffel Tower in
some way (in other words, to out-Eiffel Eiffel). When Ferris showed
them his idea for a giant wheel from which visitors could view the
entire expo, the directors dismissed the idea as unsafe.
Ferris
didn't take “no” for an answer. He got endorsements from trusted
engineers who had inspected his plans and deemed the wheel safe. And
he even convinced local investors to provide $400,000 toward
construction costs. His persistence paid off; the directors gave
Ferris the go-ahead to build his wheel.
 |
| View from a car. |
This
wheel carried way more people than any “Ferris wheel” I've ever ridden! It
had 36 cars, each with 40 revolving chairs. Each car could seat 60
people—so the ride as a whole could seat 2,160 people at a time!
Once
the fair opened, it took about 11 minutes to load up all the riders.
Then the wheel turned continuously for a 9 minute ride! The riders of
course had to go through another lengthy load-up period to get off of
the ride; so riding the Ferris Wheel could conceivably take about
half an hour!
 |
Here are two Ferris wheels
I have tried: the mini-wheel in
the little-kid section of
Knott's Berry Farm, and the
much larger wheel at Disney's
California Adventure.
They only fit from 40 to maybe
180 riders at a time. |
Still,
it was worth it—people came in droves to ride the Ferris wheel at a
cost of 50 cents per ride! By the time the expo had closed, about 38
THOUSAND people had had rides, and by the time the Ferris wheel was
torn down in 1906, about 2.5 MILLION people had ridden on it!
Plan
ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for:
