George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.
American civil engineer who created the original Ferris Wheel.
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George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. was an American civil engineer born February 14, 1859, in Galesburg, Illinois.[1][2] He died of typhoid fever on November 22, 1896, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[3] The 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition's original Ferris Wheel was created by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., which is his primary claim to fame.[1]
Life and work
Ferris's family moved to Nevada in 1864 when he was five years old.[2] Ferris earned a Civil Engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1881.[4] He began his career in the railroad industry and founded G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh to test metals.[5] In 1891, Exposition directors challenged American engineers to create a monument surpassing the Eiffel Tower.[6]
It carried 38,000 passengers daily and completed two revolutions in 20 minutes.[7] Ferris's concept was a wheel that would allow exhibition-goers to see the entire fairgrounds, a structure intended to "out-Eiffel Eiffel".[8] Ferris asserted that after the exposition concluded, the fair's management deprived him and his investors of their rightful earnings from the nearly $750,000 in profits generated by his wheel.[9] Legal proceedings occupied the final two years of Ferris's life.[9]
References
- Wikipedia, "George Washington Gale Ferris Jr." (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Inventor Ferris is Dead. The Man Who Built the Great Wheel for the World's Fair", The New York Times, November 23, 1896 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "George Washington Gale Ferris Jr." (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Eighth Census of the United States", 1860, p. 1014; "Eighth Census of the United States", 1860, p. 1014 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "George Washington Gale Ferris Jr." (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Inventor Ferris is Dead. The Man Who Built the Great Wheel for the World's Fair", The New York Times, November 23, 1896; "George W. Ferris", Los Angeles Times, November 23, 1896; "Ashes of George W.G. Ferris. Report that a Pittsburg Undertaker is Holding Them for Payment of Funeral Expenses", The New York Times, March 8, 1898; "Chase's calendar of events 2009", McGraw Hill Professional, 2009 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "George Washington Gale Ferris Jr." (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Famous Chi Phis" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "George Washington Gale Ferris Jr." (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Alumni Hall of Fame", Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "George Washington Gale Ferris Jr." (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Doodles Drafts and Designs", Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "George Washington Gale Ferris Jr." (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Anderson, "Ferris wheels – an illustrated history", Popular Press, 1992 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "George Washington Gale Ferris Jr." (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Larson, Eric. The Devil In the White City. 1st ed. New York: Vintage, 2004. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "George Washington Gale Ferris Jr." (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "George W. Ferris", Inventor of the Week, May 1996 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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