The Story That Started At Home

The excitement of summer, the sights and sounds that accompany it, and the events we all associate with the summer season. They're all here and this year, like many others before, opportunity after opportunity to have some fun and make new memories will come around. From trips with friends to summer romances, and to those special events that only come around once a year, everything we love about the summer is upon us.

Where does it all start? There are so many traditions and favorites of the summer season that one might wonder, where did that begin? In one such case, the story surprisingly begins in my hometown, 113 years and 3 days before my story begins.

George W.G. Ferris Jr.

Who was George Ferris? Ferris was originally from Galesburg, Illinois, a town founded by his namesake, George Washington Gale. His parents, George Washington Gale Ferris Sr. and Martha Edgerton Hyde were dairy farmers before they sold the family farm and moved to Nevada with George and his brother, Frederick Hyde.

For years, George's father owned the Sears-Ferris house in Carson City, Nevada. While Ferris Senior was into agriculture and horticulture, his son left Nevada in 1875 and attended a military academy in California. In 1881 George Ferris Junior graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic with a degree in Civil Engineering.

By the 1890s Ferris was a part of a team that had been tasked with coming up with something grand for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was during a time when they were missing anything impressive that Ferris had a brainstorm, a revelation of sorts, and began sketching a huge revolving steel wheel.

After tweaking the specs for his idea, he showed it to one of the main people involved in the project in Chicago and it was originally balked at because of the thin steel that was to carry people to a height taller than the Statue Of Liberty.

Ferris was not to be dissuaded and would go on to spend $25,000 of his own money on a safety study, hiring more engineers, and recruiting investors for his plan. So it was, on December 16, 1892, George W.G. Ferris Jr.'s wheel was chosen to be the American answer to the Eiffel Tower. Its design was 250 feet in diameter, with 36 cars, and each was capable of carrying 60 people.

The monstrosity of amusement opened with over 100,000 parts incorporated into what we have come to know as the Ferris Wheel. It first opened on June 21, 1893, and was a stellar success. More than a million people took a 20-minute ride and enjoyed the spectacle of the aerial view that few had ever known.

Today, across the world on boardwalks, carnivals, county fairs, and state fairs around the country and across the world, there is a version of the Ferris wheel running for our enjoyment.

George touched the world with his invention. In just weeks, in his birthplace, the first carnival attractions of the summer season will be erected. There have been many Ferris Wheels to appear in Galesburg over the years, and likely many more in the coming decades.

The Ferris Wheel is not the flashiest, scariest, or fastest of rides to enjoy. It's a simple chance to get above it all, slow down, and enjoy the view. The ride itself has been featured in American life from our county fairs to our pop culture.

Big Bang Theory fans will remember the scene with Sheldon Cooper and the great James Earl Jones riding a Ferris Wheel together. Good ole Darth Vader himself managed to rock that ride enough that it made Sheldon cringe.

The next time you're on a Ferris Wheel, or standing at the bottom watching it go around, remember that it was the simple son of a dairy farmer in Galesburg, Illinois, that made it all happen.

Citation:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-ferris-wheel-180955300/