The Ferris Wheel opened in mid-June, 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair. It was seven weeks behind schedule. Costing just shy of $300,000, with the majority of that money financed against Ferris’ own credit, the Ferris Wheel was a huge hit. And don’t fret, the World’s Fair was open for 6 solid months, so there was plenty of time to ride the Ferris Wheel. By some estimates, nearly 1 in 4 Americans visited the Fair. Those people would have paid 50 cents for the ten minute ride. The wheel went around once, picking up/letting off passengers, and then for another uninterrupted loop. Those 50 cent rides added up – this innovative ride brought in nearly $727,000 dollars.
The fate of the original Ferris Wheel was to be dismantled and reassembled in New Orleans for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. After its service there, the Ferris Wheel was dynamited for scrap. George Washington Ferris didn’t have much better luck than his wheel – he died in 1896 at age 37. His wife had left him and he was destitute due to all he owed – the Fair’s Board refused to pay him back any of the fronted money. There are varying reports of what actually killed him at such a young age: suicide, typhoid, tuberculosis and Bright’s disease all being reported.
Take a tour with me.
Pictured: the much smaller and more modern version of the Ferris Wheel at the State Fair of Texas, October 2017. Photo courtesy of Jason Flowers.
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/.
