As with a worrisome number of history’s attributions, George Washington Ferris was not the first person to build a rotating wheel for people to ride. A wood version of the “Ferris Wheel” was already being installed by William Somers at Asbury Park, Atlantic City and Coney Island. Unlike lost inventors throughout history, we know Somers’ name because he was prescient enough to patent his invention.
However, it is not known if George Washington Ferris had seen one of these wooden wheels. Ferris, an engineer by trade, was living in Pittsburgh when ‘struck by genius’ (and influenced by water wheels from his childhood) to sketch his Ferris Wheel. He knew of the challenge to create “something novel, original, daring and unique” by the Chicago World’s Fair board as Ferris worked for the company contracted to inspect steel used by at the Fair. Unlike Somers’ small wooden wheels, Ferris’ monstrous wheel would be constructed mostly from steel.
The World’s Fair board members wanted something wildly innovative to compete with the Eiffel Tower, built in 1889, yet Ferris’ initial sketch was rejected as hair brained and dangerous. Undeterred and knowing that a design had not yet been chosen (the other submissions were doozies), he began to spend $25,000 of his own money to hire more engineers and implement safety studies to guarantee that the idea was viable. With these in place, he was awarded a contract to build his Ferris Wheel which was 250 feet in diameter.
The major hurdles are yet to come and discussed in our next installment.
Ball, Dennis. “The Man Who Invented the Wheel and Paid the Price.” Ancestry.com. Accessed July 18, 2017. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wanda/ferriswheel.html.
Malanowski, Jamie. “The Brief History of the Ferris Wheel.” Smithsonian.com. June 01, 2015. Accessed July 18, 2017. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-ferris-wheel-180955300/.
