George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.

Early life

George Ferris Jr. was born in Galesburg, Illinois, on the 14th of February, 1859. The youngest of two children born to George Washington Gale Ferris Sr. and Martha Edgerton Hyde, his family moved to Nevada in 1864, where he grew up. His father worked doing horticulture for Carson, NV, gaining notoriety for his large importation of trees and designing most of the city's landscaping over the 1870s.

George Washington Gale Ferris Jr

Education and RPI

Ferris left Nevada in 1875 to begin his education, first at the military academy of Oakland, CA, where he graduated in 1876. He then went on to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he was a charter member of R.P.I.'s Chi Phi chapter and a member of the Rensselaer Society of Engineers. Ferris graduated from R.P.I. in 1881 with a civil engineering degree and worked in the rail and bridge business. Later in his career, he founded the G.W.G. company to enter the rail and bridge inspection business in the Pittsburg, PA, area. He was made a member of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Alumni Hall of Fame in 1998.

The Wheel

With the World's Columbia Exhibition of 1893 being held in Chicago and rapidly approaching, the event's directors wished to outdo their French counterparts, who in 1889 had erected the Eifel Tower. Responding to the challenge, Ferris sent in a grand plan for a spinning wheel that would lift riders in cars around its length, all while being structurally sound against the winds of the great lakes, possibly inspired by the Burdett Iron Works Wheel to out do "...Out-Eifel Eifel".

Even though the planners were a bit skeptical about the safety of the wheel, gathering support and, more crucially, local investment, he was able to get the wheel built. With 36 cars, each with 40 chairs, and a twenty-minute run time, the wheel wowed its audience, carrying roughly 38000 passengers daily.

The wheel itself lived until 1906, bringing in an estimated 2.5 million passengers throughout its lifetime before it was finally demolished. Ferris claimed the exhibition management had failed to pay him and his investors the roughly $750,000 profit his wheel produced and spent the next two years in litigation to settle.

Wheel in Construction

Completed Wheel

Death

Unfortunately, Ferris died of typhoid fever in Pittsburg Mercy Hospital on November 22nd, 1896, only a year after his father had passed away. His ashes were held in the crematorium for a year, waiting for a relative to collect them.

References

“ASHES of GEORGE W.G. FERRIS.; Report That a Pittsburg Undertaker Is Holding Them for Payment of Funeral Expenses. (Published 1898).” The New York Times, 2023, www.nytimes.com/1898/03/08/archives/ashes-of-george-wg-ferris-report-that-a-pittsburg-undertaker-is.html. Accessed 24 Feb. 2023.

“Chicago’s Great Ferris Wheel of 1893.” Archive.org, 2022, web.archive.org/web/20130118143455/www.hydeparkhistory.org/newsletter.html. Accessed 24 Feb. 2023.“Famous Chi Phi Members in Science and Medicine | Chi Phi Fraternity.” Archive.org, 2022, web.archive.org/web/20121216040146/chiphi.org/famous-chi-phi-members-science-and-medicine. Accessed 24 Feb. 2023.

“George Washington Gale Ferris Jr - History of Nevada - Carson City Convention and Visitors Bureau.” Archive.org, 2023, web.archive.org/web/20130204234648/www.visitcarsoncity.com/history/people/george_ferris.php. Accessed 24 Feb. 2023.

“INVENTOR FERRIS IS DEAD.; the Man Who Built the Great Wheel for the World’s Fair. (Published 1896).” The New York Times, 2023, www.nytimes.com/1896/11/23/archives/inventor-ferris-is-dead-the-man-who-built-the-great-wheel-for-the.html. Accessed 24 Feb. 2023.

“Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Alumni Hall of Fame.” Rpi.edu, 2018, www.rpi.edu/about/alumni/inductees/ferris.html. Accessed 24 Feb. 2023.Wikipedia Contributors. “George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Feb. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Gale_Ferris_Jr. Accessed 24 Feb. 2023.---.

“Rensselaer Society of Engineers.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Oct. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rensselaer_Society_of_Engineers. Accessed 24 Feb. 2023.