Gaby
Today marks the birthday of the Ferris wheel – on June 21, 1893, visitors to the World’s Fair in Chicago took their first ride on this attraction. Following the spectacular success of the Eiffel Tower – the “highlight” of the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris – the organizers of the Chicago exhibition considered constructing a landmark that could serve as the “calling card” of the event.
The announced competition on this topic did not help – engineers were eagerly suggesting simply building an even taller tower, and only George Ferris from Illinois proposed constructing a massive wheel with passenger cabins. The organizers were not very convinced by the young engineer’s idea and refused to fund the project – Ferris had to seek funding on his own to bring his idea to life.
The parts of the attraction were manufactured in Detroit and transported by train to Chicago – the wheel had a diameter of 80 meters and was mounted on an axle nearly 14 meters long. Each of the 36 cabins could accommodate up to 60 people, and during the exhibition, around 1.5 million visitors rode the wheel, bringing the organizers nearly $730,000 in profit – a staggering amount for that time!
