Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry writes about an engineering marvel built to rival the Eiffel Tower – the Ferris Wheel, whose inventor was born on Valentine’s Day in 1859. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
February 14 has been celebrated as Valentine’s Day for centuries. However, for Ferris wheel enthusiasts, February 14 is special for a reason that has nothing to do with cards, flowers, or candy.
American civil engineer and inventor of the Ferris wheel, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (1859-1896), was born on 14 February 1859 in Galesburg, Illinois, to George Washington Gale Ferris Sr. and Martha Edgerton (Hyde) Ferris.
A feature article that appeared in the Las Vegas Review Journal tells the story on how Ferris showed great ingenuity in creating his famous marvel the “Ferris Wheel,” or “Pleasure Wheel” as it was first known.
Here is the scoop:
When Daniel H. Burnman, chief of construction for the World’s Columbian Exposition scheduled to be held in Chicago in 1893, challenged the engineers of America to produce something to rival the Eiffel Tower of the Paris Exposition, Ferris’ imagination was fired. Thinking back to his boyhood days, he remembered the large overshot water wheels which he once saw along the Carson River, and he used the water-wheel idea in designing the soon-to-be-famous Ferris wheel.
Against the advice of friends and business associates, he undertook the construction of the huge machine, but experienced some money problems in the midst of the severe financial depression which hit the country in 1892. Many engineers looked upon the Ferris wheel as a fantastic scheme, but Ferris persevered, forming a stock corporation to finance it. He completed his project shortly after the exposition opened.
The machine was far bigger than the imitations seen at carnivals today. Rising more than 250 feet above the midway, it carried 36 gondolas. Each gondola was 27 feet long, 13 feet wide, and nine feet high, and carried 40 passengers and a conductor to open doors and answer questions – 1,440 passengers could ride at once.
Harper’s Young People magazine noted that “to prevent accidents from panics, and also to deter insane persons from jumping out, the windows are covered with iron gratings.” The wheel and its cars full of passengers weighed about 1,200 tons. It was so massive that it took 10 minutes to revolve once, and two revolutions was a ride. A 1,000-horsepower steam engine turned the wheel by sprockets which engaged cogs in the edge of the wheel, and Westinghouse air brakes were installed in case anything went wrong. Nothing did; the wheel revolved perfectly and was absolutely stable in the strong winds blowing off nearby Lake Michigan.
The daring and accuracy involved in the design and the precision of the machine work won the admiration of Ferris’ fellow engineers and the Ferris wheel became the most spectacular and profitable feature of the Exposition. Ferris’ invention was patented and he began to receive royalty checks in September 1893, but did not recoup the $390,000 the company had expended.
The Ferris family genealogy notes that his “later days were saddened by seeing this spectacular child of his brain seized by a sheriff, and indeed this event is said to have hastened his death.” He was still a young man of 37 in November 1896, when he contracted typhoid fever and died in Pittsburgh.
The article features a photo of both Ferris and his wife Margaret Ann (Beatty), whom he married on 18 September 1886 in Canton, Ohio.
The article notes the couple had no children, but Ferris’ siblings left descendants. They include the following:
- Frederick Hyde Ferris (married Elizabeth Adelaide Sherman)
- Benjamin Hyde Ferris (married Martha Lucy Crandall)
- Margaret Gale Ferris (married Heinrich Friedrich Dangberg)
- California Emma Ferris (married Oscar Thomas Barber)
- Martha Elizabeth Ferris (married Charles Matthew Schulz)
- Mary Amanda Ferris (married Alexander Montgomery Ardery)
Numerous photographs still exist that help tell the story of the first Ferris wheel.
Ferris spent seven years of his childhood in Carson City, Nevada, from 1868 to 1875. While he was there the Morgan Mill was in operation, and its giant water wheel inspired his youthful imagination. Here is a photo of the remains of the water wheel for the Morgan Mill, situated at the edge of the floodplain of the Carson River, near the head of Brunswick Canyon in the New Empire district of Carson City. The mill processed gold and silver ore from the Comstock mines starting in the 1860s and was powered by water from the Mexican Ditch, fed by the Carson River upstream.
This photo shows the Ferris wheel being built in 1893, with workmen standing atop the wheel’s huge axle.
This drawing shows the large gondolas being attached to the wheel.
This drawing shows crowds on the Midway at the foot of the Ferris Wheel on its opening day, 21 June 1893.
This photo was taken after the Ferris wheel was completed.
There were several early Ferris wheels based on Ferris’ innovative model.
This Ferris wheel was at Rigby Park in South Portland, Maine, in 1900.
This Midway Ferris Wheel was at the Concord State Fair in New Hampshire in 1904.
This Ferris wheel was at Folly Beach Amusement Park in Charlestown, South Carolina, in 1938.
Here is a historical marker with some history on Ferris and his “Giant Gondola Wheel.” The marker is at the Ferris wheel in Erie County, Pennsylvania, and was erected by Chance Rides, Inc.
The inscription reads:
In 1892 a bridge building engineer named George Washington Ferris had an idea for the upcoming Chicago Columbian Exposition: a giant observation wheel that would carry passengers high above the city and bring them smoothly back down. It took five trains, each thirty cars long, to bring the materials to Chicago. After months of construction, the huge undertaking was completed on time. And, during the 19-week Exposition the wheel ran 15 hours a day. Nearly 1.5 million people rode Mr. Ferris’ giant wheel.
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Note on the header image: an English Victorian-era Valentine card located in the Museum of London, c. 1870. Credit: rgEbfucR4wKBlg; Wikimedia Commons.
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