On this day in 1893, the original Ferris wheel made its debut at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Invented by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., a Pittsburgh-based engineer, Smithsonian Magazine describes it as a glorious success. When the fair closed up, however, it all came crashing down for Ferris. He “became immersed in a tangle of wheel-related lawsuits about debts he owed suppliers and that the fair owed him. In 1896, bankrupt and suffering from typhoid fever, he died at age 37. A wrecking company bought the wheel and sold it to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Two years later, it was dynamited into scrap.” Oof. Nonetheless, the lone official “Ferris wheel” inspired the generic term that we all now use when describing what Wikipedia claims is the most common type of amusement ride at state fairs across the country.
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