Ferris Wheel Day

What the day is

Ferris Wheel Day is observed on February 14, the birthday of George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., born in 1859. He was a bridge engineer, and the ride that carries his name was built to solve a specific national embarrassment.

Origin and background

The 1889 exposition in Paris had produced the Eiffel Tower. When Chicago prepared the World's Columbian Exposition for 1893, the organizers wanted something that would answer it, and they wanted it to be original rather than a taller tower.

Ferris proposed an enormous rotating wheel. The engineering establishment was skeptical to the point of derision, and he funded much of the early work himself. The wheel he built stood about 264 feet tall and carried 36 cars, each large enough for sixty people, so a full load approached two thousand passengers at once. It worked, it was the hit of the fair, and it carried well over a million riders.

The aftermath was bleak. Ferris spent years in litigation over the profits, his business failed, and he died in 1896 at the age of 37. The original wheel was moved, reused and finally demolished for scrap in the early 1900s.

The form outlived him completely. Modern observation wheels are considerably larger and built on a different principle, with cabins suspended from a rim supported by cable spokes rather than rigid girders, which is how structures over 400 feet became practical.

How to take part

• Ride one. Winter wheels at markets and piers run in February, and the view is better in cold clear air than in summer haze.
• Go at dusk. The few minutes when lights come on and the sky still has color are the best part of any wheel.
• Look up the original in photographs. Its scale against 1893 Chicago is startling.
• Read about Ferris himself. The story of the invention is considerably darker than the ride suggests.
• If you are afraid of heights, the enclosed cabins on modern observation wheels are a gentler introduction than an open fairground car.