This time of year many of us look forward to going to the fair. We love to indulge at the food stands with tried and true favorites of cotton candy, funnel cakes, and corn dogs (with ketchup only.) I especially love the lemonade shake-ups made with tart, fresh lemons and grainy sugar, slurp slurp! Since moving to Florida I still haven’t made the adjustment to having the state fair in February! So wrong.
Even if you don’t ride the rides or play the games, you have to take a turn around the midway and take in its flashing lights, ringing bells, and shrieking children. Among the whirling teacups, twirling octopus arms, and plunging roller coasters, you’ll find the old-fashioned Ferris Wheel. Hopefully there will be Ferris Wheels spinning near you sometime soon and that you’ll be able to enjoy the modern version of George Ferris’s invention.
One of the world’s favorite rides is named for George Washington Gale Ferris, who built the first ‘Ferris Wheel’ for one of the biggest fairs of them all, the 1892 World’s Fair held in Chicago, Illinois. Standards for great spectacles were high and Ferris didn’t disappoint. His wheel was 266 feet tall with a circumference of 825 feet. Unlike modern Wheels, the cars on his Wheel could hold up to 60 people each. With all 36 cars filled, over 2,000 could ride it at once. Wow!
Today’s Ferris Wheels are much smaller, but most of them are also portable. Ferris’s wheel had to be completely taken apart and the brick and masonry foundation broken down before it could be moved. It was only erected once or twice more, and what was once one of the world’s most exciting spectacles ended up as land fill.
