There undoubtedly are many thousands of you who recall with fondness and awe riding on George Ferris’ great wheel, but few seemed interested in it once the Columbian Exposition closed a decade ago.
Then it was the greatest new wonder of the world. Two-hundred-and-fifty feet in diameter and carrying 36 cars, each able to accommodate 60 wide-eyed passengers, it was an engineering marvel and an entertainment that taxed the vocabularies of the most superlative-minded.
For its nearly five months at the fair, the wheel operated without flaw. It took some 1,453,611 paying passengers into the air and many more thousands of dignitaries, investors and members of the press who were given free rides. At first, some were skeptical that the wheel’s design was sturdy enough to support the weight of cars and passengers. So on June 11, ten days before it opened to the public, the wheel’s riders included the fair’s construction chief, Daniel Burnham, and Margaret Ferris, the wife of its creator.
In the spring following the end of the fair, the wheel was dismantled and moved–at a cost of $14,000 and over 86 days–to an area near Clark Street and Wrightwood Avenue. There it would, investors hoped, anchor an entertainment complex with landscaped grounds, a restaurant, bandshell and vaudeville house.
But the crowds never came. Perhaps the novelty had worn off. Investors lost their shirts, and in 1896 George Washington Gale Ferris died of tuberculosis at the age of 37. It is a terrible thing to say, but perhaps it is better that he took his leave; he did not have to witness the June day last year when his great wheel was sold at auction for a mere $1,800.
As reported by a colleague in these Tribune pages, “The auction was a touching scene, marked with the usual reminiscences of past glory.”
Earlier this year, one could see crews of workmen dismantling the wheel, and many assumed its pieces were to be scattered as scrap across the land. But any visitor to the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis will find the wheel. That’s where it was moved, put back together and once again set in motion in July.
So many of the 1893 fair’s glories have by now been reduced to dust and mere memory. It therefore might do you some good to know that for a few months this year, at least, the big wheel will continue to delight.
———-
UPDATES AND DETAILS
The rest of the story
In order to put together this issue of the magazine, certain liberties had to be taken. A few of the photographs, for instance, are not precisely from 1904 but are of that era. The stories have been reconstructed from various sources, including histories, biographies and Tribune files.
Page 7: After the St. Louis fair, the Ferris wheel was dismantled and sold as scrap.
