Ferris Wheel
Noria gigante (rueda de Ferris)
- Date
- 1892-1893 · confidence high
- Place
- Chicago, Illinois, United States
- Credited to
- George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Engineer George W. G. Ferris Jr. designed and built for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago a giant wheel 80 meters in diameter with 36 cabins, conceived as an American answer to the Eiffel Tower of the 1889 Paris Exposition.
It opened on 21 June 1893 and was the tallest attraction at the fair; smaller wheels existed earlier, but Ferris's was the first large-scale one conceived as an engineering spectacle.
What it led to
- birth of the Ferris wheel as a fairground attraction worldwide
- advances in the engineering of large rotating structures
- an enduring icon of amusement parks and world's fairs