Special for STRUCTURE magazine – for September 2008 issue

* George W.G. Ferris – Mr. Ferris Wheel *

By Richard G. Weingardt, PE
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            In reporting on a the latest batch of 500-plus tall Ferris wheels being built around the globe, the headline for an article in the March 2008 issue of Popular Mechanics read, “Big-Money Race for World’s Tallest Ferris Wheels Heats Up.” The author of the article Erin McCarthy reported, “When it comes to status symbols, nothing beats a circle. There is a global race to create the biggest Ferris wheel, and while these attractions are built for fun, the stakes are serious. These wheels have almost replaced the skyscraper as icons.” This race to erect the largest observation wheel began in America, 115 years ago at the World’s Fair in Chicago, and the individual behind it all was a daring young engineer from western Nevada – George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.  
In commemorating the 150th anniversary of his birth, ASCE Press is publishing a book about his life and times – Circles in the Sky by Richard Weingardt.  Although much has been written about his tension-wheel creation, the Ferris Wheel, little is known about Ferris personally. Circles in the Sky corrects that. It is the only in-depth, comprehensive book ever written about the mysterious and iconic 19th century American engineer.
In his book, Weingardt reveals countless unknown secrets about Ferris and delves into his personal and engineering life, where he came from and how he came to develop the greatest wheel ever built – and how, in the end, it consumed him. The following is excerpted from Weingardt’s book.
Tall, handsome and dashing Ferris was an imposing figure, a legend in his own time. He commanded attention wherever he went long before he became an international figure. As the creator of one of 19th century’s most imaginative inventions, the young U.S. civil/structural engineer experienced world recognition while still in his early 30s.
A partner in one of Ferris’s two engineering firms, Gustav Kaufman, said of Ferris, “He was eminently engaging and social, an entertaining storyteller who often amused his friends with anecdotes. He was an optimist, always bright, hopeful and full of anticipation of good results from all the ventures he had at hand, convinced that he would ultimately overcome any troubles. These feelings he could always impart to whomever he addressed in a most wonderful degree, and therein lay the key to his success. Even in the darkest times, he was ever looking for the sunshine to come.”
Carl Snyder, a reporter with The Review of Reviews: An International Magazine, interviewed Ferris in the early 1890s and stated, “He greets you easily, his demeanor is quiet, his tones low. For a Western man, he is rather fastidious in his dress. Perhaps his most notable characteristic is his steel blue eyes of remarkable depth and clarity. After listening to his easy, unaffected talk, brilliant without effort for an hour, one feels he is in the presence of a man destined to play an important role in the industrial and mechanical advancement of his country.” Unfortunately Ferris’s career was cut short, long before his full potential was reached. He died on November 22, 1896, of typhoid fever and other complications.
George Ferris was born on farm in Galesburg, Illinois, on February 14, 1859, the youngest son of George, Sr. and Martha (Hyde) Ferris. Young George had eight siblings – four brothers and four sisters, the youngest Mame, two years younger than him. When George was five, his father, a relatively wealthy farmer, moved the family to Nevada – the Wild West – during the summer of 1864 while the Civil War was at its zenith. There he bought an expansive ranch along the Carson River next to the imposing Sierra Nevada Mountains, and near Carson City, soon to be named the state capital.
Young Ferris grew up on the family ranch; happy and carefree with plenty of time and open space to roam, ride horses, hunt and fish. It is rumored, he developed his inspiration for the Ferris Wheel during these idyllic years. He was fascinated by – and spent countless hours observing – the large water wheel at Cradlebaugh Bridge over the Carson River on a nearby ranch, imagining what it would feel like to ride such a moving structure.
The Ferrises moved into Carson City in 1868, when George was nine. By then, the U.S. transcontinental railroad was well on its way to connecting the country from east to west, and many young Americans, including young Ferris, dreamed of how exciting it would be to be a railroad engineer. After receiving his early education in Carson City schools, 14-year-old George left home to attend the California Military Academy in Oakland, California.
By then, he had decided to become an engineer – and when he graduated from Oakland in the spring of 1876, 17-year-old Ferris had set his sights high. He planned to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York, the most respected and prestigious private engineering college in the nation. While there, his willingness to take on challenges and accept difficult assignments was manifested, both in the classroom and on the sports field. Said RPI Professor Larry Feeser, “Ferris had an admired reputation for invariably winning footraces and being able to throw a ball farther then anyone on campus.”
After graduating from RPI in 1881, with a degree in civil engineering, Ferris went to work for a consulting engineering and construction firm headquartered in New York City (NYC) – General James Ledlie’s company. Ledlie had played a prominent role in the construction of the Union Pacific section of the transcontinental railroad and was prominent in railroad circles. While with Ledlie, Ferris worked on bridges, tunnels and railroad trestles throughout West Virginia.
In 1883, Ferris secured a position as assistant engineer with the Louisville Bridge and Iron Company in Louisville, Kentucky, to work on the design and construction of the Henderson Bridge. It was a tall, 27,995-foot-long structure crossing the Ohio River Bridge between Evansville, Indiana, and Henderson, Kentucky. The $2-million record-setting bridge’s longest clear span was 525 feet, which made it the longest trestle span in the world at the time.
Once the Henderson was completed in early 1885, Ferris relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where, the 26-year-old founded G.W.G. Ferris and Company, a steel inspection and consulting engineering firm. The following year, he married Margaret Ann Beatty of Canton, Ohio. They would never have children.
One year later, he founded another engineering company with old RPI pal Gustav Kaufman – Ferris, Kaufman and Company (FKC) – mainly to design bridges and supplement the services of G.W. Ferris and Company. Among FKC’s main bridges were the Ninth Street Bridge over the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh and the Central Bridge over the Ohio River between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Newport, Kentucky. Both were record making bridges when opened. 
By the early 1890s, Ferris had major offices in NYC, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Chicago, Illinois. Chicago had secured the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (Fair), and Ferris and many of his colleagues were involved in testing and inspecting structural steel for the massive buildings planned for the event. Many considered the architectural designs for these structures to be outstanding. All their facades were white stucco, which resulted in the complex of buildings being labeled the “White City.”
The organizers for the Fair, however, were not impressed with the event’s engineering facilities. They expressed great disappointment that American engineers hadn’t come up with anything “novel and original” to equal the Paris Exposition’s Eiffel Tower of 1889. Architect Daniel H. Burnham, head of the Fair committee and in charge of selecting its showcase projects, complained at an engineers’ banquet in 1891 that although American architects had come up with great designs nothing the nation’s engineers had proposed would “meet the expectations of the people.” He said what was needed was something to out-Eiffel Gustav Eiffel. Burnham’s motto was, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s minds.”
Shortly after Burnham’s taunting speech, a personable, confident, well-dressed 33-year-old engineer from Pittsburgh –George Ferris – stepped forward with an out-Eiffel proposal – and his was “no little plan.” George Ferris proposed building an enormous, revolving wheel – higher than Chicago’s tallest building, an awesome device that would carry passengers to breathtaking heights and yet be absolutely safe.
Ferris said he struck upon his idea one night after an engineering society dinner, saying, “I got out some paper and began sketching it out. I fixed the size, determined the construction, the number of cars we would run, the number of people it would hold, what we would charge, the plan of stopping six times during the first revolution for loading, and then making a complete turn. In short, before the evening was over, I had sketched out almost the entire detail and my plan never varied an item from that day on.”
At first, people thought Ferris’s proposal for such a colossal people-carrying, steel-tension wheel outrageous – and him to be a wild man – especially when he stated he could not only design but build the huge contraption in the short time left before the Exposition’s opening. Some called him “the man with wheels in his head.”
Bruce Geno, a Pennsylvania civil engineer and Ferris historian, was quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as saying it was truly amazing that Ferris got the Ferris Wheel “designed and fabricated in such a short time. He used his connections in the steel industry to get steel. Just as impressive, though, was that he was able to convince people it was a good idea to build this monster.”
The charismatic Ferris proved he not only had an inventive mind but also the ability to engineer and build. The Ferris Wheel was completed on time and within its $400,000 budget – and it, indeed, proved to be the highlight of the Exposition. As the icon of the Fair, it was America’s answer to France’s Eiffel Tower.
The Ferris Wheel, along with the Brooklyn and Eads bridges, showed that American civil/structural engineering had arrived. American engineers were seen as a force to be reckoned with worldwide. Ferris had pushed the envelope on how high moving structures could reach and opened the public’s mind to the versatility and capabilities of steel, the newly emerging structural material of the future.
Ferris’s wheel, which had a diameter of 250 feet, was raised 15 feet off the ground and stood 265 feet tall. It was supported by two 140-foot steel towers connected by a 45-ton axle – the largest single piece of forged steel in the world at the time. Thirty-six streetcar-sized cabins – with plush, crushed velvet interiors – held 60 people each. A 1,000 horsepower reversible engine provided the power. Fully loaded, the 1,200-ton Ferris Wheel could carry 2,000-plus people, a passenger capacity still not exceeded even by today’s mammoth wheels.
On the Wheel’s debut in June, 1893, reporters and many notables took the first rides, several highly apprehensive at being so far above the ground. They were put at ease soon after the festivities began. At the top of the ride (as reported in the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette in 1893), a “little woman, looking wonderfully pretty in a dainty gown of black trimmed in gold stood on a chair in a car swaying 265 feet above earth, raised a glass of champagne to the others in the car and toasted her husband.” In this toast, a beaming Margaret Ferris said, “To the health of my husband and the success of the Ferris Wheel.”
Over the years, Ferris’s invention has been replicated often and everywhere. Currently, the largest Ferris wheel is the 541-foot tall Singapore Flyer. Prior to 2008, the 443-foot tall, $56.5 million London Eye, opened in 2001 and turning above the Thames River, held the record. A number of wheels in the 600-foot range are opening in places like Dubai, Berlin, Germany, and Orlando, Florida. Next year the Beijing Great Wheel in China, will become the world record holder at 682 feet.
Ferris gained much fame but little fortune with his Wheel. And its notoriety, unfortunately, so overshadowed the rest of his engineering accomplishments that he has only been remembered as the inventor of one thing and not for his many other engineering accomplishments. His ingenuity and daring engineering skills, though, are confirmed and honored every time a new tension-wheel is built anywhere.
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BYLINE

Richard G. Weingardt, PE
CEO, Richard Weingardt Consultants, Inc.
Denver, CO
He is the author of nine books. His latest Circles in the Sky: The Life and Times of George Ferris is scheduled for publication (by ASCE Press) in early 2009. Weingardt’s other recent book Engineering Legends features numerous great American structural engineers. Weingardt can be reached at rweingardt@aol.com

Both of his ASCE Press books can be ordered from him or from:  bkulamer@asce.org

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 PHOTO CAPTIONS

Photo #1
George W.G. Ferris at age 34.
Photo Credit: Douglas County Historic Society

Photo #2
The 200-foot-diameter Ferris wheel in Prater Park, Vienna, Austria. Built in 1897, it is the world’s oldest continuously operated observation/pleasure wheel and a tribute to the ingenuity of George Ferris.
Photo credit: Larry Feeser

 

On Left - Engineer George Ferris

On Right - George Ferris Wheel in Vienna