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. The spokes look like cobwebs they are after the fashion of those on the newest make of bicycles'. it has no visible means of support – none that appear adequate. Upon first seeing the wheel which towered over everything in its vicinity, Julian Hawthorne, son of the author Nathaniel, was amazed that anything of such a size 'continues to keep itself erect. 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. On June 9, 1893, the wheel was primed for a test run with great anticipation and a good deal of anxiety. There were 36 passenger cars, each fitted with 40 revolving chairs and able to accommodate up to 60 people, giving a total capacity of 2,160. A miniature wooden replica resides in Pittsburgh at the Senator John Heinz History Center. The wheel rotated on a 71- ton, 45.5 foot (13.9 meters) long axle comprising what was at that time the world's largest hollow forging, manufactured in Pittsburgh by the Bethlehem Iron Company and weighing 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). Piles of timber were driven thirty-two feet into the ground, on top of which was laid a grillage of steel, filled with concrete. Jets of steam were used by workers to thaw dirt and prevent poured concrete from freezing. in Pittsburgh, a firm that tested and inspected metals for railroads and bridge builders.ĭynamite was used to break through three feet of frozen ground, to create a foundation for the wheel, during the construction of the wheel in Jackson Park during the winter of 1892–93. Ferris understood the growing need for structural steel and founded G.W.G. He began his career in the railroad industry and then pursued an interest in bridge building.

He was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania bridge-builder. The Ferris Wheel was designed and constructed by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Wheel unik