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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Welcome to This Day in History Class, where

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Speaker 1: we bring you a new tipbit from history every day.

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Speaker 1: Today is June nineteen. The day was June. The Ferris Will,

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Speaker 1: designed and built by engineer George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.

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Speaker 1: Was unveiled to the public at the World's Columbian Exposition

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Speaker 1: in Chicago. It's run at the exposition was successful, and

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Speaker 1: though Ferris was not the first to create a huge

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Speaker 1: will as an amusement ride, his name has become synonymous

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Speaker 1: with the attraction. The origin of pleasure wheels as amusement

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Speaker 1: wills were once known is unclear. They could have been

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Speaker 1: inspired by ancient water wheels, or the could have originated

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Speaker 1: in Eastern Europe or the Middle East. In a sixteen

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Speaker 1: twenty diary entry by Peter Mundy, the English Traveler describes

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Speaker 1: a type of pleasure will in present day Bulgaria. Early

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Speaker 1: fairs had rides similar to the pleasure will that weren't

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Speaker 1: quite a wheel, but where passengers would travel around a

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Speaker 1: horizontal access. There were swings, roundabouts, and ups and downs

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Speaker 1: that were precursors to the Ferris Will, and in the

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Speaker 1: United States. In the eighteen hundreds, pleasure wheels were already

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Speaker 1: entertaining fair goers. A carpenter named William Summers built an

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Speaker 1: observation roundabout that debut in eight and from there his

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Speaker 1: company went on to build more wheels in New Jersey

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Speaker 1: and New York. But it was at the World's Columbian

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Speaker 1: Exposition where Ferris's will made its big debut. The exposition,

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Speaker 1: also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was organized to

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Speaker 1: celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in

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Speaker 1: the America's The expositions director of work, Daniel Burnham, was

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Speaker 1: interested in displaying a feat of engineering that would rival

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Speaker 1: the Eiffel Tower, which was unveiled at the Paris Exposition

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Speaker 1: in eighty nine. But a bigger tower would not do.

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Speaker 1: It had to be something original, daring, and unique. George

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Speaker 1: Ferris answered the call. At the time, Ferris was a

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Speaker 1: senior partner in a firm that specialized in building steel bridges.

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Speaker 1: He had attended the California Military Academy and got his

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Speaker 1: engineering degree from rins Leer Polytechnic Institute in eighteen one.

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Speaker 1: Ferris had spent many years building tunnels, railroads, trestles and bridges.

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Speaker 1: He helped promote the story that he came up with

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Speaker 1: the design for the Ferris Will while at dinner with

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Speaker 1: friends one night, but in reality, there had been many

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Speaker 1: proposals for a will, including one by H. W. Fowl

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Speaker 1: Ler and the aforementioned William Summers. In fact, the Garden

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Speaker 1: City Observation Wheel Company applied for a concession to build

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Speaker 1: a Summer's Wheel on exposition grounds around the same time

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Speaker 1: Ferris did. Summer's request to build a will there was denied,

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Speaker 1: so his company built a will outside the exposition grounds. Later,

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Speaker 1: the Garden City Observation Will Company sued the Ferris Wheel

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Speaker 1: Company for patent infringement, but the Ferris Will Company won

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Speaker 1: the suit anyway, When Ferris went to the Expositions Ways

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Speaker 1: and Means Committee with his idea for a giant wheel,

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Speaker 1: his idea was dismissed as ridiculous or impossible, but in

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Speaker 1: late eighteen nine two the fair granted his concession to

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Speaker 1: construct the wheel on the midway. By the time the

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Speaker 1: exposition opened on May one, eight ninety three, the wheel

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Speaker 1: was not yet complete. On June nine, the wheel went

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Speaker 1: for a test run without cars, and the following days

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Speaker 1: cars were hung and loading platforms were completed. Local press

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Speaker 1: members were invited for a trial trip on the wheel

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Speaker 1: end on June one. After speeches from Ferris and other

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Speaker 1: notable people, the wheel began turning to music and much fanfare.

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Speaker 1: The wheel weighed more than two million pounds and was

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Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty ft in diameter. It had thirty

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Speaker 1: six passenger cars, and it could carry two thousand, one

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Speaker 1: hundred sixty people. An employee was stationed in each car

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Speaker 1: as passengers road. The ride was two revolutions and twenty

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Speaker 1: minutes long. The wheel was lit by thousands of incandescent

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Speaker 1: light bulbs. The Ferrest Whill ran until November of that year.

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Speaker 1: By this time, more than one point four million people

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Speaker 1: had paid fifty cents to ride the wheel, adding up

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Speaker 1: to more than seven hundred thousand dollars and gross earnings

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Speaker 1: in The Ferrest Will was dismantled in the year after that,

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Speaker 1: it was reconstructed at a new site, but it failed

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Speaker 1: to prove as successful as before. When George Ferris died

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Speaker 1: of typhoid fever in eight he had spent years in

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Speaker 1: litigation over the Ferris World profits and was bankrupt. I'm

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Speaker 1: eve jeffco and hopefully you know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. If there's something that

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Speaker 1: everybody else on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook at T d

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Speaker 1: I h C podcast. But if you haven't gotten your

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Speaker 1: feel of history yet, then you can listen to a

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Speaker 1: new show I host called Unpopular. You already know what

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Speaker 1: Unpopular is about, just go listen to it. Thanks, and

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