The Brief History of the Ferris Wheel

In late , Daniel Burnham, the eminent architect charged with turning a boggy square mile of Chicago into a world-dazzling showpiece, assembled an all-star team of designers and gave them one directive: &#;Make no little plans.&#; Burnham was laboring in the shadow of a landmark erected the year before in Paris, an elegant wrought iron structure rising a thousand feet into the air.

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But nobody in the States had an answer for the Eiffel Tower. Oh, there were proposals: a tower garlanded with rails to distant cities, enabling visitors to toboggan home; another tower from whose top guests would be pushed off in cars attached to thick rubber bands, a forerunner of bungee jumping. Eiffel himself proposed an idea: a bigger tower. Merci, mais non. As plans for the World&#;s Columbian Exposition in Chicago took shape, there was a void where its exclamation point was meant to stand.Burnham spoke before a group of engineers employed on the project and chided them for their failure of imagination. To avoid humiliation, he said, they needed to come up with &#;something novel, original, daring and unique.&#; One of their number, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., a 33-year-old engineer from Pittsburgh whose company was charged with inspecting the steel used by the fair, was struck by a brainstorm and quickly sketched a huge revolving steel wheel. After adding specifications, he shared the idea with Burnham, who balked at the slender rods that would carry people to a height taller than the recently opened Statue of Liberty. &#;Too fragile,&#; he said.

Ferris was hardly the first to imagine such a wheel. In fact, a carpenter named William Somers was building 50-foot wooden wheels at Asbury Park, Atlantic City and Coney Island; a roundabout, he called it, and he&#;d even patented his design. But Ferris had not only been challenged to think big; the huge attendance expected at the fair inspired him to bet big. He spent $25,000 of his own money on safety studies, hired more engineers, recruited investors. On December 16, , his wheel was chosen to answer Eiffel. It measured 250 feet in diameter, and carried 36 cars, each capable of holding 60 people.

More than 100,000 parts went into Ferris&#; wheel, notably an 89,320-pound axle that had to be hoisted onto two towers 140 feet in the air. Launched on June 21, , it was a glorious success. Over the next 19 weeks, more than 1.4 million people paid 50 cents for a 20-minute ride and access to an aerial panorama few had ever beheld. &#;It is an indescribable sensation,&#; wrote a reporter named Robert Graves, &#;that of revolving through such a vast orbit in a bird cage.&#;

But when the fair gates closed, Ferris became immersed in a tangle of wheel-related lawsuits about debts he owed suppliers and that the fair owed him. In , bankrupt and suffering from typhoid fever, he died at age 37. A wrecking company bought the wheel and sold it to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Two years later, it was dynamited into scrap.

So died the one and only official Ferris wheel. But the invention lives on in the ubiquitous imitators inspired by the pleasure Ferris made possible. Eiffel&#;s immortal icon is undoubtedly une pièce unique. But at boardwalks, county fairs and parish festivals around the globe millions whirl through the sky in neon-lit wheels and know the sensation that, years later, Joni Mitchell put into words. &#;Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels,&#; she sang, &#;the dizzy dancing way you feel.&#; Summertime riders know just what she means.

The original Ferris Wheel

The original Ferris Wheel, sometimes also referred to as the Chicago Wheel,[2][3] was designed and built by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. as the centerpiece of the Midway at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. Since its construction, many other Ferris wheels have been constructed that were patterned after it.

Intended as keystone attraction similar to that of the Paris Exposition's 324-metre (1,063 ft) Eiffel Tower, the Ferris Wheel was the Columbian Exposition's tallest attraction, with a height of 80.4 metres (264 ft).

The Ferris Wheel was dismantled and then rebuilt in Lincoln Park, Chicago, in , and dismantled and rebuilt a third and final time for the World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. It was ultimately demolished in . In , the wheel's 45 foot, 70-ton axle was reportedly discovered buried near where it was demolished.[4]

Early history

[edit] External image Axle of the Chicago Ferris Wheel

Before the Ferris wheel, the Eiffel tower stood as a new centerpiece in Paris and an idea that was thought to be needed in the States. Gustave Eiffel himself amongst other inventors had many ideas as to how they could bring this tower over to the states, but ultimately, Daniel Burnham thought up the idea of a monumental wheel. When he presented his ideas to a team of metal workers &#; George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. and his team &#; he thought the idea to be unsafe and unable to be done. Ferris kept on with the wheel ideas and proposed a bigger and taller tower, to stand as its own centerpiece at the World's Columbian Exposition. Once Burnham was off the project, Ferris's team brought the project to life and was able to give this new attraction to 1.4 million people in June of .[5]

Design and construction

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The Ferris Wheel was designed and constructed by Ferris, a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania bridge-builder.[6] Ferris began his career in the railroad industry before pursuing an interest in bridge building. He understood the growing need for structural steel and founded G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh, a firm that tested and inspected metals for railroads and bridge builders.

The wheel was constructed in Jackson Park during the winter of &#;93. To create a foundation for the wheel, dynamite was used to break through three feet of frozen ground. Piles of timber were driven thirty-two feet into the ground, on top of which was laid a grillage of steel that was then filled with concrete. Jets of steam were used by workers to thaw dirt and prevent the poured concrete from freezing.[7] With the foundation in place, the wheel was then constructed.

The completed wheel rotated on a 71-ton, 45.5 foot (13.9 meter) long axle that was at that time the world's largest hollow forging. It was manufactured in Pittsburgh by the Bethlehem Iron Company and weighed 89,320 pounds (40,510 kg), together with two 16-foot-diameter (4.9 m) cast-iron spiders weighing 53,031 pounds (24,054 kg).[8] There were 36 passenger cars, each fitted with 40 revolving chairs and able to accommodate up to 60 people, giving a total capacity of 2,160.[2]

On June 9, , the wheel was primed for a test run with great anticipation and a good deal of anxiety. The engine that would activate the wheel was fueled by steam boilers whose underground mains rushed steam to propel the pistons of its thousand-horsepower engines. Upon first seeing the wheel which towered over everything in its vicinity, Julian Hawthorne, son of the author Nathaniel, was amazed that anything of such a size "continues to keep itself erect ... it has no visible means of support &#; none that appear adequate. The spokes look like cobwebs; they are after the fashion of those on the newest make of bicycles".[9] Ferris modeled his invention after the structural principles of a waterwheel near his childhood home in Nevada and modeled after the structural principles of a bicycle wheel. The Ferris wheel was supported by an enormous axle and powered by a one-thousand-horsepower steam engine. Correspondents made repeated requests for drawings and information, but Ferris would not release the details. As a consequence, no copies of the original plans or calculations have survived.

Both Ferris and his associate W. F. Gronau also recognized the engineering marvel the wheel represented, as a giant wheel that would turn slowly and smoothly without structural failure had never before been attempted.[10]

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For its inaugural run, no cars had yet been attached. The workmen however, climbed the structure and settled themselves on the spokes to the accompaniment of cheers from an audience of fair employees who had gathered to watch the momentous event. After the wheel had completed its first rotation, Gronau deemed the test a success. "I could have yelled out loud for joy".[11]

The wheel was erected at a cost of $385,000.[1]

Operation

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The Ferris Wheel took 20 minutes to make two revolutions, the first involving six stops to allow passengers to exit and enter and the second a nine-minute non-stop rotation, for which the ticket holder paid 50 cents (equivalent to $16.96 in ).

The Ferris Wheel first opened to the public as the centerpiece of the World's Columbian Exposition at Midway Plaisance in Chicago on June 21, , and continued to operate there until after the exposition ended in October .

Almost 1.5 million paid to ride on the wheel, generating a profit of $395,000.[8]

After the Columbian Exposition

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The wheel itself closed in April and was then dismantled and stored until the following year, when it was rebuilt in the Lincoln Park, Chicago, neighborhood.[12] The amusement park was located at to N. Clark, which is now the location of a McDonald's and a high-rise residential building.[13] The original plan was to include a beer garden and vaudeville show, but the liquor license was not granted.[13] William D. Boyce, then a local resident, filed a Circuit Court action against the owners of the wheel to have it removed, but without success.

In , the Lumiere Brothers, inventors of cinema, shot film (catalogue number 338[14][15]) of the intersection of Wrightwood and Clark which included the Ferris wheel.[16] It is one of the first films of Chicago.

The wheel operated at Clark St. from October until , when it was purchased at auction by the Chicago House Wrecking Company (CHWC) for $8,150[17] (equivalent to $276,380 in ).

It was then dismantled for a second time and transported by rail to St. Louis for the World's Fair, where it earned the CHWC about $215,000 (equivalent to $7,290,890 in ).

Demolition and disposition

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After the World's Fair closed on December 1, , no purchasers were found who would pay for the relocation of the great Ferris Wheel, despite many efforts. It was finally destroyed by controlled demolition using dynamite on May 11, (18 months after the fair closed), to be sold for scrap. This was necessary because the contract with the city of St. Louis required the "restoration of Forest Park."[18]

In , a magnetic survey using a cesium magnetometer[19] indicated that a long, steel or iron object (presumed to be the axle) was buried under a major street roughly 200 feet (61 m) from where the wheel was demolished. It has not yet been excavated.[4]

Since , other published documents and research into original papers (from the Chicago House Wrecking Company, c.&#;) indicate that the axle was taken back to Chicago, where it was eventually cut up for scrap when oxy-acetylene torches improved sufficiently to cut the hardened steel axle up for scrap. These references include Norman Anderson's book Ferris Wheels: An Illustrated History,[20] several unpublished CHWC letters and documents, an article by Leo Harris (grandson of the CHWC's Treasurer) who wrote that "...the giant axle of the wheel was returned to the yards of the CHWC, where it remained until it was cut up for its steel content at the beginning of World War I",[21] and an article published on February 1, , in the Clinton (IL) Register, indicating, "The last of the Ferris Wheel has been taken away... It was found necessary to blow off the flanges from the axle ... before it could be loaded on a (railroad) car".[22]

Lasting legacy

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Although the original Ferris Wheel was demolished, a new wheel lives on in Chicago at Navy Pier, with structural similarities and inspiration from Ferris's original wheel. Similar to the Chicago wheel, this Ferris wheel gives participants a 10&#;20 minute ride in an enclosed cart at a similar height to the original.[23]

The original Chicago Navy Pier Ferris Wheel was modeled off of the Chicago Ferris Wheel and set on July 1, , with 40 cars fitting six passengers in each one. The now Centennial wheel has enclosed cars at an elevated height closer to the original Chicago Wheel. [24]

Coordinates

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• &#; &#; Midway Plaisance, Chicago:  [citation needed]
• &#; &#; Lincoln Park, Chicago: [25]
• &#; &#; St. Louis:  [citation needed]

In popular culture

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• The hero of Robert Lawson's children's book The Great Wheel is part of the construction crew for the original Chicago Ferris Wheel.
• The characters of the film Meet Me in St. Louis, attending the World's Fair, observe the Ferris Wheel and foreshadow its eventual demolition.
• The back cover of the CD of My Chemical Romance&#;s debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, features a distorted image of the Ferris Wheel.
• The picture book, Mr. Ferris and His Wheel, tells of its creation.

References

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• Larson, Erik (). The devil in the white city: murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America. Crown Publishers. ISBN .