Ferris Wheel Launched at the 1893 Exposition

By Sam Moore
Published on November 18, 2011
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A portable Ferris wheel just beginning its daily run at a recent Johnny Appleseed Festival in Lisbon, Ohio. 
A portable Ferris wheel just beginning its daily run at a recent Johnny Appleseed Festival in Lisbon, Ohio. 
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The London Eye, a high-tech, 443-foot tall Ferris wheel built in 1999 on the banks of the Thames River in London.
The London Eye, a high-tech, 443-foot tall Ferris wheel built in 1999 on the banks of the Thames River in London.
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In a 17th century engraving by Adam Olearius, there appears to be a seesaw jumping game of some sort going on in the right front, while several children ride a hand-turned pleasure wheel at the left. 
In a 17th century engraving by Adam Olearius, there appears to be a seesaw jumping game of some sort going on in the right front, while several children ride a hand-turned pleasure wheel at the left. 
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The original Ferris wheel at the 1893 Chicago Exposition. 
The original Ferris wheel at the 1893 Chicago Exposition. 
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The 1886 patent for a vertical rotary swing issued to Lucas M. Campi of New York. 
The 1886 patent for a vertical rotary swing issued to Lucas M. Campi of New York. 

Most everyone is familiar with the Ferris wheel, but how many know why the popular ride bears that name? In fact, the ancestors of the present day tall and brightly lit fair and carnival rides have been around for centuries and were first known as “pleasure wheels.”

Pietro Delle Valle described a ride on a pleasure wheel at a Ramadan festival he attended in Constantinople in 1615. “I was delighted to find myself swept upwards and downwards at such speed,” he wrote. “But the wheel turned round so rapidly that a Greek who was sitting near me couldn’t bear it any longer and shouted out ‘Enough! Enough!'”

English traveler Peter Mundy wrote of a wheel he saw in the Balkans in 1620: “Like a Craine wheel at Customhouse Key and turned in that manner, whereon children sit on little seats hung round about in several parts thereof, and though it turned right up and down, and that the children are sometimes on the upper part of the wheel, and sometimes on the lower, yet they always sit upright.”

In this country during the latter part of the 19th century, the devices were called “vertical rotary swings,” “roundabouts” and “observation wheels.” The earliest patent I found is from 1886 by L.H. Campi for a steam-driven “vertical rotary swing.”

Rising to the challenge

The committee in charge of planning the great 1893 Columbian Exposition (or World’s Fair) in Chicago was desperate for an engineering marvel to outclass the famous Eiffel Tower that had awed visitors to the 1889 Exposition in Paris. Accordingly, a challenge was issued to American engineers to come up with anything but another tower. As the committee head said, “Something novel, original, daring and unique must be designed and built if American engineers are to retain their prestige and standing.” The Exposition committee turned down a number of proposals. Some were wildly impractical, such as an aerial island supported by six hot air balloons, but most were for various towers taller than the Eiffel.

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