77-567: The original Ferris Wheel , sometimes also referred to as the Chicago Wheel , was designed and built by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. as the centerpiece of the Midway at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois . Since its construction, many other Ferris wheels have been constructed that were patterned after it. Intended as keystone attraction similar to that of
154-677: A 10–20 minute ride in an enclosed cart at a similar height to the original. The original Chicago Navy Pier Ferris Wheel was modeled off of the Chicago Ferris Wheel and set on July 1, 1995, with 40 cars fitting six passengers in each one. The now Centennial wheel has enclosed cars at an elevated height closer to the original Chicago Wheel. For other quiescent (incomplete, delayed, stalled, cancelled, failed, or abandoned) proposals, see: Ferris wheel#Quiescent proposals George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (February 14, 1859 – November 22, 1896)
231-514: A firm that tested and inspected metals for railroads and bridge builders. The wheel was constructed in Jackson Park during the winter of 1892–93. To create a foundation for the wheel, dynamite was used to break through three feet of frozen ground. Piles of timber were driven thirty-two feet into the ground, on top of which was laid a grillage of steel that was then filled with concrete. Jets of steam were used by workers to thaw dirt and prevent
308-461: A monumental wheel. When he presented his ideas to a team of metal workers – George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. and his team – he thought the idea to be unsafe and unable to be done. Ferris kept on with the wheel ideas and proposed a bigger and taller tower, to stand as its own centerpiece at the World's Columbian Exposition . Once Burnham was off the project, Ferris's team brought the project to life and
385-430: A pavilion of artillery, which apparently had cost one million dollars to stage, including a coastal gun of 42 cm in bore (16.54 inches) and a length of 33 calibres (45.93 feet, 14 meters). A breech-loaded gun, it weighed 120.46 long tons (122.4 metric tons). According to the company's marketing: "It carried a charge projectile weighing from 2,200 to 2,500 pounds which, when driven by 900 pounds of brown powder ,
462-528: A profit of $ 395,000. The wheel itself closed in April 1894 and was then dismantled and stored until the following year, when it was rebuilt in the Lincoln Park, Chicago , neighborhood. The amusement park was located at 2619 to 2665 N. Clark, which is now the location of a McDonald's and a high-rise residential building. The original plan was to include a beer garden and vaudeville show, but the liquor license
539-705: A replica of the Gokstad ship . It was built in Norway and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean by 12 men, led by Captain Magnus Andersen. In 1919, this ship was moved to Lincoln Park . It was relocated in 1996 to Good Templar Park in Geneva, Illinois , where it awaits renovation. Thirty-four U.S. states also had their own pavilions. The work of noted feminist author Kate McPhelim Cleary was featured during
616-744: A rock quarry in Quincy, Massachusetts , so that the Bunker Hill Monument could be erected in Boston. The frog switch is now on public view in East Milton Square, Massachusetts , on the original right-of-way of the Granite Railway. Transportation by rail was the major mode of transportation. A 26-track train station was built at the southwest corner of the fair. While trains from around the country would unload there, there
693-520: A stylized recreation of an American Indian cliff dwelling with pottery, weapons, and other relics on display. There was also an Eskimo display. There were also birch bark wigwams of the Penobscot tribe. Nearby was a working model Indian school, organized by the Office of Indian Affairs, that housed delegations of Native American students and their teachers from schools around the country for weeks at
770-628: A successful exposition and that only Chicago was fit to fill these exposition requirements. The location of the fair was decided through several rounds of voting by the United States House of Representatives. The first ballot showed Chicago with a large lead over New York, St. Louis and Washington, D.C., but short of a majority. Chicago broke the 154-vote majority threshold on the eighth ballot, receiving 157 votes to New York's 107. The exposition corporation and national exposition commission settled on Jackson Park and an area around it as
847-493: A time. The John Bull locomotive was displayed. It was only 62 years old, having been built in 1831. It was the first locomotive acquisition by the Smithsonian Institution . The locomotive ran under its own power from Washington, DC , to Chicago to participate, and returned to Washington under its own power again when the exposition closed. In 1981 it was the oldest surviving operable steam locomotive in
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#1732781172004924-421: A total capacity of 2,160. On June 9, 1893, the wheel was primed for a test run with great anticipation and a good deal of anxiety. The engine that would activate the wheel was fueled by steam boilers whose underground mains rushed steam to propel the pistons of its thousand-horsepower engines. Upon first seeing the wheel which towered over everything in its vicinity, Julian Hawthorne, son of the author Nathaniel ,
1001-418: A total capacity of 2,160. When the fair opened, it carried some 38,000 passengers daily, taking 20 minutes to complete two revolutions—the first involving six stops to allow passengers to enter and exit, and the second a nine-minute non-stop rotation, for which the ticket holder paid 50 cents. It carried 2.5 million passengers before it was finally demolished in 1906. After the fair closed, Ferris claimed that
1078-609: A very popular exhibit. Eadweard Muybridge gave a series of lectures on the Science of Animal Locomotion in the Zoopraxographical Hall, built specially for that purpose on Midway Plaisance. He used his zoopraxiscope to show his moving pictures to a paying public. The hall was the first commercial movie theater. The "Street in Cairo" included the popular dancer known as Little Egypt . She introduced America to
1155-586: A way to bring together societies fragmented along class lines. The first American attempt at a world's fair in Philadelphia in 1876 drew crowds, but was a financial failure. Nonetheless, ideas about distinguishing the 400th anniversary of Columbus' landing started in the late 1880s. Civic leaders in St. Louis, New York City, Washington DC, and Chicago expressed interest in hosting a fair to generate profits, boost real estate values, and promote their cities. Congress
1232-481: A wheel from which visitors could view the entire exhibition, a wheel that would "out-Eiffel Eiffel". Ferris returned in a few weeks with several respectable endorsements from established engineers, and the committee agreed to allow construction to begin. Most convincingly, he had recruited several local investors to cover the $ 400,000 cost of construction. The Ferris Wheel had 36 cars, each fitted with 40 revolving chairs and able to accommodate up to 60 people, giving
1309-774: The Niña (real name Santa Clara ), the Pinta , and the Santa María . These were intended to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the Americas. The ships were constructed in Spain and then sailed to America for the exposition. The celebration of Columbus was an intergovernmental project, coordinated by American special envoy William Eleroy Curtis , the Queen Regent of Spain , and Pope Leo XIII . The ships were
1386-602: The 1889 Paris Exposition 's 324-metre (1,063 ft) Eiffel Tower , the Ferris Wheel was the Columbian Exposition's tallest attraction, with a height of 80.4 metres (264 ft). The Ferris Wheel was dismantled and then rebuilt in Lincoln Park, Chicago , in 1895, and dismantled and rebuilt a third and final time for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri . It was ultimately demolished in 1906. In 2007,
1463-528: The Baháʼí Faith in North America; it was not taken seriously by European scholars until the 1960s. Along the banks of the lake, patrons on the way to the casino were taken on a moving walkway designed by architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee , the first of its kind open to the public, called The Great Wharf, Moving Sidewalk , it allowed people to walk along or ride in seats. Horticultural exhibits at
1540-711: The Chicago World's Fair , was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus 's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, held in Jackson Park , was a large water pool representing the voyage that Columbus took to the New World. Chicago won the right to host the fair over several competing cities, including New York City , Washington, D.C. , and St. Louis . The exposition
1617-564: The Clinton (IL) Register , indicating, "The last of the Ferris Wheel has been taken away... It was found necessary to blow off the flanges from the axle ... before it could be loaded on a (railroad) car". Although the original Ferris Wheel was demolished, a new wheel lives on in Chicago at Navy Pier , with structural similarities and inspiration from Ferris's original wheel. Similar to the Chicago wheel, this Ferris wheel gives participants
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#17327811720041694-607: The Beaux-Arts architecture of the buildings was under the direction of Daniel Burnham, Director of Works for the fair. Renowned local architect Henry Ives Cobb designed several buildings for the exposition. The director of the American Academy in Rome, Francis Davis Millet , directed the painted mural decorations. Indeed, it was a coming-of-age for the arts and architecture of the " American Renaissance ", and it showcased
1771-561: The Horticultural Hall included cacti and orchids as well as other plants in a greenhouse . Most of the buildings of the fair were designed in the neoclassical architecture style. The area at the Court of Honor was known as The White City . Façades were made not of stone, but of a mixture of plaster, cement, and jute fiber called staff , which was painted white, giving the buildings their "gleam". Architecture critics derided
1848-488: The Louisiana Pavilion were each given a seedling of a cypress tree. This resulted in the spread of cypress trees to areas where they were not native. Cypress trees from those seedlings can be found in many areas of West Virginia, where they flourish in the climate. The Illinois was a detailed, full-scale mockup of an Indiana -class battleship , constructed as a naval exhibit. The German firm Krupp had
1925-697: The United States helped finance, coordinate, and manage the Fair, including Chicago shoe company owner Charles H. Schwab, Chicago railroad and manufacturing magnate John Whitfield Bunn , and Connecticut banking, insurance, and iron products magnate Milo Barnum Richardson , among many others. The fair was planned in the early 1890s during the Gilded Age of rapid industrial growth, immigration, and class tension. World's fairs, such as London's 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition , had been successful in Europe as
2002-612: The World's Columbian Exposition, the answer is Slavery." Ten thousand copies of the pamphlet were circulated in the White City from the Haitian Embassy (where Douglass had been selected as its national representative), and the activists received responses from the delegations of England, Germany, France, Russia, and India. The exhibition did include a limited number of exhibits put on by African Americans, including exhibits by
2079-426: The World's Religions , which ran from September 11 to September 27, marked the first formal gathering of representatives of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions from around the world. According to Eric J. Sharpe , Tomoko Masuzawa , and others, the event was considered radical at the time, since it allowed non-Christian faiths to speak on their own behalf. For example, it is recognized as the first public mention of
2156-562: The ashes of the Great Chicago Fire , which had destroyed much of the city in 1871. On October 9, 1893, the day designated as Chicago Day, the fair set a world record for outdoor event attendance, drawing 751,026 people. The debt for the fair was soon paid off with a check for $ 1.5 million (equivalent to $ 50.9 million in 2023). Chicago has commemorated the fair with one of the stars on its municipal flag . Many prominent civic, professional, and commercial leaders from around
2233-499: The axle) was buried under a major street roughly 200 feet (61 m) from where the wheel was demolished. It has not yet been excavated. Since 2000, other published documents and research into original papers (from the Chicago House Wrecking Company, c.1904–1906) indicate that the axle was taken back to Chicago, where it was eventually cut up for scrap when oxy-acetylene torches improved sufficiently to cut
2310-413: The burgeoning neoclassical and Beaux-Arts styles. The fair ended with the city in shock, as popular mayor Carter Harrison Sr. was assassinated by Patrick Eugene Prendergast two days before the fair's closing. Closing ceremonies were canceled in favor of a public memorial service. Jackson Park was returned to its status as a public park, in much better shape than its original swampy form. The lagoon
2387-463: The city where there was "not a house to buy and not a rock to blast" and that it would be located so that "the artisan and the farmer and the shopkeeper and the man of humble means" would be able to easily access the fair. Bryan continued to say that the fair was of "vital interest" to the West, and that the West wanted the location to be Chicago. The city spokesmen would continue to stress the essentials of
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2464-957: The class of 1881 with a degree in Civil Engineering. At RPI he was a charter member of the local chapter of the Chi Phi Fraternity and a member of the Rensselaer Society of Engineers . He was made a member of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Alumni Hall of Fame in 1998. Ferris began his career in the railroad industry and was interested in bridge building. He founded a company, G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , to test and inspect metals for railroads and bridge builders. Ferris House , his home at 1318 Arch Street, Central Northside ,
2541-532: The end of the frontier which Buffalo Bill represented. The electrotachyscope of Ottomar Anschütz was demonstrated, which used a Geissler tube to project the illusion of moving images . Louis Comfort Tiffany made his reputation with a stunning chapel designed and built for the Exposition. After the Exposition the Tiffany Chapel was sold several times, even going back to Tiffany's estate. It
2618-743: The exhibition management had robbed him and his investors of their portion of the nearly $ 750,000 profit that his wheel brought in. He spent the next two years in litigation. Ferris Sr. died in 1895, followed soon after by Ferris Jr. himself, on November 22, 1896, at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, of typhoid fever . His ashes remained at a Pittsburgh crematorium for over a year, waiting for someone to take possession of them. For other quiescent (incomplete, delayed, stalled, cancelled, failed, or abandoned) proposals, see: Ferris wheel#Quiescent proposals World%27s Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition , also known as
2695-438: The exposition. The exposition covered 690 acres (2.8 km ), featuring nearly 200 new but temporary buildings of predominantly neoclassical architecture, canals and lagoons , and people and cultures from 46 countries. More than 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month run. Its scale and grandeur far exceeded the other world's fairs , and it became a symbol of emerging American exceptionalism , much in
2772-568: The fair site being referred to as the "White City". The Exposition's offices set up shop in the upper floors of the Rand McNally Building on Adams Street, the world's first all-steel-framed skyscraper. Davis' team organized the exhibits with the help of G. Brown Goode of the Smithsonian . The Midway was inspired by the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition , which included ethnological "villages". Civil rights leaders protested
2849-411: The fair site. Daniel H. Burnham was selected as director of works, and George R. Davis as director-general. Burnham emphasized architecture and sculpture as central to the fair and assembled the period's top talent to design the buildings and grounds including Frederick Law Olmsted for the grounds. The temporary buildings were designed in an ornate neoclassical style and painted white, resulting in
2926-479: The fair's official director of color-design, William Pretyman. Pretyman had resigned following a dispute with Burnham. After experimenting, Millet settled on a mix of oil and white lead whitewash that could be applied using compressed air spray painting to the buildings, taking considerably less time than traditional brush painting. Joseph Binks, maintenance supervisor at Chicago's Marshall Field's Wholesale Store , who had been using this method to apply whitewash to
3003-464: The fair, several products that are well-known today were introduced. These products included Juicy Fruit gum, Cream of Wheat , Cracker Jacks , Shredded Wheat cereal, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, among many others. There was an Anthropology Building at the World's Fair. Nearby, "The Cliff Dwellers" featured a rock and timber structure that was painted to recreate Battle Rock Mountain in Colorado,
3080-514: The hardened steel axle up for scrap. These references include Norman Anderson's book Ferris Wheels: An Illustrated History , several unpublished CHWC letters and documents, an article by Leo Harris (grandson of the CHWC's Treasurer) who wrote that "...the giant axle of the wheel was returned to the yards of the CHWC, where it remained until it was cut up for its steel content at the beginning of World War I", and an article published on February 1, 1907, in
3157-522: The help of Chicago Art Institute instructor Lorado Taft to help complete them. Taft's efforts included employing a group of talented women sculptors from the Institute known as "the White Rabbits " to finish some of the buildings, getting their name from Burnham's comment "Hire anyone, even white rabbits if they'll do the work." The words "Thine alabaster cities gleam" from the song " America
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3234-548: The opening of the Nebraska Day ceremonies at the fair, which included a reading of her poem "Nebraska". Among the state buildings present at the fair were California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas; each was meant to be architecturally representative of the corresponding states. Four United States territories also had pavilions located in one building: Arizona , New Mexico , Oklahoma , and Utah . Visitors to
3311-636: The poured concrete from freezing. With the foundation in place, the wheel was then constructed. The completed wheel rotated on a 71-ton, 45.5 foot (13.9 meter) long axle that was at that time the world's largest hollow forging. It was manufactured in Pittsburgh by the Bethlehem Iron Company and weighed 89,320 pounds (40,510 kg), together with two 16-foot-diameter (4.9 m) cast-iron spiders weighing 53,031 pounds (24,054 kg). There were 36 passenger cars, each fitted with 40 revolving chairs and able to accommodate up to 60 people, giving
3388-470: The refusal to include an African American exhibit. Frederick Douglass , Ida B. Wells , Irvine Garland Penn , and Ferdinand Lee Barnet co-authored a pamphlet entitled "The Reason Why the Colored American is not in the World's Columbian Exposition – The Afro-American's Contribution to Columbian Literature" addressing the issue. Wells and Douglass argued, "when it is asked why we are excluded from
3465-430: The relocation of the great Ferris Wheel, despite many efforts. It was finally destroyed by controlled demolition using dynamite on May 11, 1906 (18 months after the fair closed), to be sold for scrap. This was necessary because the contract with the city of St. Louis required the "restoration of Forest Park." In 2007, a magnetic survey using a cesium magnetometer indicated that a long, steel or iron object (presumed to be
3542-543: The same way that the Great Exhibition became a symbol of the Victorian era United Kingdom. Dedication ceremonies for the fair were held on October 21, 1892, but the fairgrounds were not opened to the public until May 1, 1893. The fair continued until October 30, 1893. In addition to recognizing the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World, the fair served to show the world that Chicago had risen from
3619-457: The sculptor Edmonia Lewis , a painting exhibit by scientist George Washington Carver , and a statistical exhibit by Joan Imogen Howard . Black individuals were also featured in white exhibits, such as Nancy Green 's portrayal of the character Aunt Jemima for the R. T. Davis Milling Company. The fair opened in May and ran through October 30, 1893. Forty-six nations participated in the fair, which
3696-472: The second a nine-minute non-stop rotation, for which the ticket holder paid 50 cents (equivalent to $ 16.96 in 2023). The Ferris Wheel first opened to the public as the centerpiece of the World's Columbian Exposition at Midway Plaisance in Chicago on June 21, 1893, and continued to operate there until after the exposition ended in October 1893. Almost 1.5 million paid to ride on the wheel, generating
3773-467: The structure and settled themselves on the spokes to the accompaniment of cheers from an audience of fair employees who had gathered to watch the momentous event. After the wheel had completed its first rotation, Gronau deemed the test a success. "I could have yelled out loud for joy". The wheel was erected at a cost of $ 385,000. The Ferris Wheel took 20 minutes to make two revolutions, the first involving six stops to allow passengers to exit and enter and
3850-443: The structures as "decorated sheds.” The buildings were clad in white stucco , which, in comparison to the tenements of Chicago, seemed illuminated. It was also called the White City because of the extensive use of street lights, which made the boulevards and buildings usable at night. In 1892, working under extremely tight deadlines to complete construction, director of works Daniel Burnham appointed Francis Davis Millet to replace
3927-410: The subbasement walls of the store, got the job to paint the Exposition buildings. Claims this was the first use of spray painting may be apocryphal since journals from that time note this form of painting had already been in use in the railroad industry from the early 1880s. Many of the buildings included sculptural details and, to meet the Exposition's opening deadline, chief architect Burnham sought
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#17327811720044004-400: The suggestive version of the belly dance known as the " hootchy-kootchy ," to a tune said to have been improvised by Sol Bloom (and now more commonly associated with snake charmers) which he had composed when his dancers had no music to dance to. Bloom did not copyright the song, putting it immediately in the public domain . Also included was the first moving walkway or travelator, which
4081-621: The wheel's 45 foot, 70-ton axle was reportedly discovered buried near where it was demolished. Before the Ferris wheel, the Eiffel tower stood as a new centerpiece in Paris and an idea that was thought to be needed in the States. Gustave Eiffel himself amongst other inventors had many ideas as to how they could bring this tower over to the states, but ultimately, Daniel Burnham thought up the idea of
4158-594: The world when it ran under its own power again. A Baldwin 2-4-2 locomotive was showcased at the exposition, and subsequently the 2-4-2 type was known as the Columbia . An original frog switch and portion of the superstructure of the famous 1826 Granite Railway in Massachusetts could be viewed. This was the first commercial railroad in the United States to evolve into a common carrier without an intervening closure. The railway brought granite stones from
4235-758: Was 264 feet (80 m) high and had 36 cars, each of which could accommodate 40 people. The importance of the Columbian Exposition is highlighted by the use of rueda de Chicago ("Chicago wheel") in many Latin American countries such as Costa Rica and Chile in reference to the Ferris wheel . One attendee, George C. Tilyou , later credited the sights he saw on the Chicago midway for inspiring him to create America's first major amusement park, Steeplechase Park in Coney Island , New York. The fair included life-size reproductions of Christopher Columbus' three ships,
4312-703: Was Chicago banker Lyman Gage , who raised several million additional dollars in a 24-hour period, over and above New York's final offer. Chicago representatives not only fought for the world's fair for monetary reasons, but also for reasons of practicality. In a Senate hearing held in January 1890, representative Thomas Barbour Bryan argued that the most important qualities for a world's fair were "abundant supplies of good air and pure water", "ample space, accommodations and transportation for all exhibits and visitors". He argued that New York had too many obstructions, and Chicago would be able to use large amounts of land around
4389-599: Was a local train to shuttle tourists from the Chicago Grand Central Station to the fair. The newly built Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad also served passengers from Congress Terminal to the fairgrounds at Jackson Park . The line exists today as part of the CTA Green Line . Forty-six countries had pavilions at the exposition. Norway participated by sending the Viking ,
4466-483: Was able to give this new attraction to 1.4 million people in June of 1893. The Ferris Wheel was designed and constructed by Ferris, a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania bridge-builder. Ferris began his career in the railroad industry before pursuing an interest in bridge building. He understood the growing need for structural steel and founded G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh,
4543-645: Was added to the list of City of Pittsburgh Designated Historic Structures on June 28, 2001. News of the World's Columbian Exposition to be held in 1893, in Chicago, Illinois, drew Ferris to the city. In 1891, the Exposition's directors issued a challenge to American engineers to conceive of a monument for the fair to surpass the Eiffel Tower , the great structure of the Paris International Exposition of 1889. The planners wanted something "original, daring and unique". Ferris proposed
4620-483: Was amazed that anything of such a size "continues to keep itself erect ... it has no visible means of support – none that appear adequate. The spokes look like cobwebs; they are after the fashion of those on the newest make of bicycles". Ferris modeled his invention after the structural principles of a waterwheel near his childhood home in Nevada and modeled after the structural principles of a bicycle wheel. The Ferris wheel
4697-488: Was an American civil engineer . He is mostly known for creating the original Ferris Wheel for the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition . Ferris was born on February 14, 1859, in Galesburg, Illinois , the town founded by his namesake, George Washington Gale . His parents were George Washington Gale Ferris Sr. and Martha Edgerton Hyde. He had an older brother named Frederick Hyde, born in 1843. In 1864 when Ferris
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#17327811720044774-667: Was an agriculturalist/horticulturalist, noteworthy in Carson City's development for much of the city's landscaping during the 1870s, and for importing a large number of the trees from the east that were planted throughout the city. Ferris left Nevada in 1875 to attend the California Military Academy in Oakland , where he graduated in 1876. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, in
4851-415: Was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on American architecture , the arts, American industrial optimism, and Chicago's image. The layout of the Chicago Columbian Exposition was predominantly designed by John Wellborn Root , Daniel Burnham , Frederick Law Olmsted , and Charles B. Atwood . It was the prototype of what Burnham and his colleagues thought a city should be. It
4928-402: Was called on to decide the location. New York financiers J. P. Morgan , Cornelius Vanderbilt , and William Waldorf Astor , among others, pledged $ 15 million to finance the fair if Congress awarded it to New York, while Chicagoans Charles T. Yerkes , Marshall Field , Philip Armour , Gustavus Swift , and Cyrus McCormick, Jr. , offered to finance a Chicago fair. What finally persuaded Congress
5005-409: Was claimed to be able to penetrate at 2,200 yards a wrought-iron plate three feet thick if placed at right angles." Nicknamed "The Thunderer", the gun had an advertised range of 15 miles. On this occasion John Schofield declared Krupps' guns "the greatest peacemakers in the world". This gun was later seen as a precursor of the company's World War I Dicke Berta howitzers. The 1893 Parliament of
5082-428: Was closed on Sunday, it would restrict those who could not take off work during the work-week from seeing it. The exposition was located in Jackson Park and on the Midway Plaisance on 630 acres (2.5 km ) in the neighborhoods of South Shore, Jackson Park Highlands, Hyde Park , and Woodlawn . Charles H. Wacker was the director of the fair. The layout of the fairgrounds was created by Frederick Law Olmsted, and
5159-400: Was closing (the university has since developed south of the Midway). The university's football team, the Maroons, were the original " Monsters of the Midway ." The exposition is mentioned in the university's alma mater : "The City White hath fled the earth, / But where the azure waters lie, / A nobler city hath its birth, / The City Gray that ne'er shall die." The World's Columbian Exposition
5236-486: Was designed by architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee . It had two different divisions: one where passengers were seated, and one where riders could stand or walk. It ran in a loop down the length of a lakefront pier to a casino. Although denied a spot at the fair, Buffalo Bill Cody decided to come to Chicago anyway, setting up his Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show just outside the edge of the exposition. Nearby, historian Frederick Jackson Turner gave academic lectures reflecting on
5313-453: Was designed to follow Beaux-Arts principles of design, namely neoclassical architecture principles based on symmetry, balance, and splendor. The color of the material generally used to cover the buildings' façades, white staff , gave the fairgrounds its nickname, the White City. Many prominent architects designed its 14 "great buildings". Artists and musicians were featured in exhibits and many also made depictions and works of art inspired by
5390-408: Was eventually reconstructed and restored and in 1999 it was installed at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art . Architect Kirtland Cutter 's Idaho Building , a rustic log construction, was a popular favorite, visited by an estimated 18 million people. The building's design and interior furnishings were a major precursor of the Arts and Crafts movement . Among the other attractions at
5467-470: Was five years old, his family sold their dairy farm and moved to Nevada . For two years, they lived in Carson Valley. From 1868 to 1890, his father, George Washington Gale Ferris Sr., owned the Sears–Ferris House at 311 W. Third, Carson City, Nevada . Originally built in about 1863 by Gregory A. Sears , a pioneer Carson City businessman, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places for Carson City on February 9, 1979. Ferris Senior
5544-506: Was not granted. William D. Boyce , then a local resident, filed a Circuit Court action against the owners of the wheel to have it removed, but without success. In 1896, the Lumiere Brothers , inventors of cinema, shot film (catalogue number 338) of the intersection of Wrightwood and Clark which included the Ferris wheel. It is one of the first films of Chicago. The wheel operated at Clark St. from October 1895 until 1903, when it
5621-410: Was purchased at auction by the Chicago House Wrecking Company (CHWC) for $ 8,150 (equivalent to $ 276,380 in 2023). It was then dismantled for a second time and transported by rail to St. Louis for the 1904 World's Fair , where it earned the CHWC about $ 215,000 (equivalent to $ 7,290,890 in 2023). After the 1904 World's Fair closed on December 1, 1904, no purchasers were found who would pay for
5698-516: Was reshaped to give it a more natural appearance, except for the straight-line northern end where it still laps up against the steps on the south side of the Palace of Fine Arts/Museum of Science & Industry building. The Midway Plaisance , a park-like boulevard which extends west from Jackson Park, once formed the southern boundary of the University of Chicago , which was being built as the fair
5775-584: Was supported by an enormous axle and powered by a one-thousand-horsepower steam engine. Correspondents made repeated requests for drawings and information, but Ferris would not release the details. As a consequence, no copies of the original plans or calculations have survived. Both Ferris and his associate W. F. Gronau also recognized the engineering marvel the wheel represented, as a giant wheel that would turn slowly and smoothly without structural failure had never before been attempted. For its inaugural run, no cars had yet been attached. The workmen however, climbed
5852-461: Was the first world's fair to have national pavilions. They constructed exhibits and pavilions and named national "delegates"; for example, Haiti selected Frederick Douglass to be its delegate. The Exposition drew over 27 million visitors. The fair was originally meant to be closed on Sundays, but the Chicago Woman's Club petitioned that it stay open. The club felt that if the exposition
5929-462: Was the first world's fair with an area for amusements that was strictly separated from the exhibition halls. This area, developed by a young music promoter, Sol Bloom , concentrated on Midway Plaisance and introduced the term "midway" to American English to describe the area of a carnival or fair where sideshows are located. It included carnival rides, among them the original Ferris Wheel , built by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. This wheel
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