TL;DR: George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. designed the original Ferris wheel in 1893 specifically to outshine the Eiffel Tower at the Chicago World's Fair -- and his 264-foot steel giant carried more than 1.4 million passengers in a single summer. The eccentric Ferris wheel patent filed in 1920 by Charles Hermann added intentionally irregular motion to mimic a roller coaster. Original patent prints are available framed or unframed.
When the organizers of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago asked American engineers to produce something that would rival the Eiffel Tower -- built just four years earlier for the Paris Exposition -- most dismissed the challenge. George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. did not. He sketched his answer on a napkin at a dinner in 1891: a giant rotating wheel, 264 feet tall, capable of carrying more than two thousand passengers at a time.
Nobody believed it would work. The engineering committee rejected his first proposal. When he finally secured approval, he had to finance much of the construction himself. On June 21, 1893, the wheel turned for the first time. Over the course of the fair, it carried approximately 1.4 million passengers. Ferris had not just matched the Eiffel Tower -- he had created an entirely new category of amusement ride that would still be found at fairs and carnivals more than a century later.
The Origins of the Wheel: Pre-1893 Predecessors
The idea of a rotating wheel carrying passengers predates Ferris by at least a century. In 17th- and 18th-century Bulgaria and Russia, rudimentary pleasure wheels were built from timber, operated by hand or by servants who would turn them for paying customers. These early wheels -- sometimes called "Russian swings" in Western Europe -- typically stood 20 to 30 feet tall and carried only a handful of riders at a time.
By the early 19th century, small amusement wheels had spread across Europe and appeared at traveling fairs in England and France. American carnival operators experimented with wooden versions in the decades before the Civil War. But all of these were small, hand-powered, structurally simple affairs. The engineering challenges that would come with scaling the concept to something genuinely monumental had never been confronted.
What Ferris proposed was categorically different: a steel structure two and a half times the height of anything previously attempted, powered by steam engines, designed to carry 2,160 people per revolution, built in an urban setting on a compressed construction timeline. The gap between his wheel and its predecessors was not incremental. It was a different kind of machine entirely.
George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.: The Engineer Behind the Wheel
Ferris was born in 1859 in Galesburg, Illinois, and grew up in Carson City, Nevada, where his family had moved to take advantage of the state's mining boom. He studied civil engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, graduating in 1881. He went on to found a materials testing company in Pittsburgh, where he became one of the country's leading experts in steel bridge construction.
That background was essential to the wheel's design. Ferris understood steel at a structural level that few engineers of his era could match. His wheel used 2,100 tons of steel, including two 45-foot axles that were -- when cast -- the largest pieces of steel ever forged in the United States. The axle alone weighed 70 tons. The entire structure had to be engineered to survive Chicago's famous winds while carrying dynamic loads from hundreds of moving passengers.
The 36 cars attached to the wheel were not the simple open gondolas of earlier rides. Each was an enclosed, glass-windowed cab 27 feet long and 13 feet wide, fitted with revolving chairs so passengers could turn to face any direction. They were, in effect, small railroad cars suspended from a giant rotating axle. The total passenger capacity per revolution -- 2,160 people -- exceeded that of most passenger trains of the period.
Building the Wheel: 1892 to 1893
Ferris broke ground on the wheel in January 1893. The World's Fair opened on May 1, 1893. That gave him roughly four months to construct what was, at the time, one of the most complex steel structures ever assembled. The timeline was not generous.
The wheel's location on the Midway Plaisance -- the fair's entertainment corridor -- complicated construction. Workers had to excavate massive concrete foundations in frozen winter soil while the rest of the fair was being built around them. The axle was transported to Chicago by railroad and lifted into place using cranes that had to be purpose-built for the task.
The wheel did not spin in time for opening day. It turned for the first time on June 21, running test rides for two days before opening to the public on June 23. A single ride cost fifty cents -- the equivalent of more than fifteen dollars today. Despite that price, lines formed immediately. The wheel ran from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. and processed thousands of passengers per day. By the fair's close in October, it had earned Ferris and his investors approximately $726,805 in ticket revenue.
From Chicago to the World: The Ferris Wheel After 1893
The original Chicago wheel was dismantled after the fair and reassembled at a new location on North Clark Street, where it operated until 1895. It was then moved again to St. Louis for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, where it attracted another significant audience. In 1906, with the wheel aging and its owner in financial difficulty, it was demolished using dynamite. The steel was sold for scrap.
Ferris himself did not outlast his invention by long. He died in 1896 at age 37, from typhoid fever. He died deeply in debt, having spent much of his personal fortune financing the original wheel's construction and fighting legal battles over the profits he believed he was owed. The man who had built one of the most recognized amusement structures in the world died without having profited meaningfully from it.
The concept he proved, however, continued without him. Ferris wheels spread to fairs and amusement parks across North America and Europe in the following decades, shrinking in size to become practical carnival staples but retaining the essential engineering logic of his original design.
The Hermann Patent of 1920: Eccentric Motion
In 1920, a different inventor took the Ferris wheel concept in an unexpected direction. Charles Hermann filed a U.S. patent for a wheel design that caused passenger carriages to follow an intentionally irregular, non-circular path during rotation. Rather than rising and descending smoothly on a circular arc, Hermann's carriages moved through an eccentric orbit that introduced sudden lurches and unexpected changes in direction.
The effect was described in his patent as making the ride "reminiscent of a roller coaster" -- the sudden changes in acceleration and direction that made roller coasters thrilling, applied to the familiar Ferris wheel form. Hermann's patent was credited to Eccentric Ferris Wheel Amusement and is believed to have expired in 1937.
The Hermann patent represents a consistent pattern in the history of mechanical amusement: once a basic design proves popular, inventors immediately begin exploring how to intensify the sensation it produces. The standard Ferris wheel was already a commercial success. Hermann's question was whether the motion could be made more exciting without changing the basic structure.
The Modern Ferris Wheel: Observation and Architecture
The 20th century saw Ferris wheels evolve from fairground attractions into permanent urban landmarks. The London Eye, completed in 1999 and designed by architects David Marks and Julia Barfield, stands 135 meters tall on the south bank of the Thames and has become one of London's most-visited tourist attractions. Its 32 enclosed glass capsules were engineered for panoramic observation, not for thrill -- the wheel completes one revolution in approximately 30 minutes, moving slowly enough that passengers barely notice the motion.
The Star of Nanchang in China, completed in 2006, stands 160 meters tall with 60 capsules. In Las Vegas, the High Roller at the LINQ -- completed in 2014 -- reaches 167 meters, making it one of the tallest observation wheels ever built. These structures have moved well beyond their fairground origins: they are architectural installations, observation platforms, and city symbols that draw visitors specifically because of their height and views.
The trajectory from Ferris's 1893 napkin sketch to these glass-enclosed observation towers follows a clean line of engineering ambition. Each generation pushed height, capacity, and structural complexity further. The essential mechanism -- a large wheel rotating on a horizontal axis, carrying passengers in suspended cars -- has not changed in 130 years.
What changed is scale, permanence, and purpose. Ferris built his wheel to answer a challenge. The engineers who followed built theirs to define the skylines of the cities that commissioned them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who invented the Ferris wheel?
George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., a civil engineer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, invented the Ferris wheel for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He designed it specifically to rival the Eiffel Tower, which had been built for the 1889 Paris Exposition. His original wheel stood 264 feet tall and carried 2,160 passengers per revolution.
How tall was the original Ferris wheel?
The original Ferris wheel stood 264 feet (approximately 80 meters) tall and had 36 enclosed passenger cars, each capable of holding up to 60 people. The wheel was powered by two 1,000-horsepower steam engines and took 20 minutes to complete one full rotation. At the time of its construction, it was the largest rotating structure in the world.
What is the Hermann Ferris wheel patent?
In 1920, Charles Hermann filed a U.S. patent for an eccentric Ferris wheel in which the passenger carriages moved along an intentionally irregular, non-circular path rather than a smooth circular arc. The design was intended to produce sudden lurches and changes in direction that made the ride feel more like a roller coaster. The patent was credited to Eccentric Ferris Wheel Amusement and is believed to have expired in 1937.
What happened to the original Ferris wheel?
After the 1893 World's Fair closed, the original wheel was dismantled and reassembled in a new Chicago location. It was later moved to St. Louis for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. In 1906, the structure was demolished with dynamite and the steel was sold as scrap. George Ferris himself died in 1896 at age 37, before he could profit significantly from his invention.
What is the tallest Ferris wheel in the world?
As of recent records, some of the tallest Ferris wheels and observation wheels in the world include the Ain Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (250 meters), the High Roller in Las Vegas (167 meters), and the Star of Nanchang in China (160 meters). The London Eye, at 135 meters, remains one of the most visited. These modern observation wheels evolved from the engineering principles Ferris demonstrated in 1893.
Written by Rider Tuff, founder of Timeless Patents. Timeless Patents makes museum-quality patent art prints from original U.S. Patent Office documents, celebrating the inventors behind your favorite rides, sports, and passions. Every print is available framed or unframed, starting at $49.99. Shop the full amusement and entertainment collection →
