The First Ferris Wheel: America’s Answer to the Eiffel Tower? | Smartest Year Ever (Oct 1, 2025)

In 1889, the Eiffel Tower stunned the world at the Paris Exposition. Four years later, Chicago needed its own showstopper for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. What emerged was one of the boldest engineering gambles of the century: the world’s first Ferris Wheel, designed by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.

Gordy takes you inside the battle of national pride between Paris and Chicago, the bizarre failed proposals that came before the wheel (including giant bungees and coast-to-coast toboggans), and the staggering details of Ferris’s creation: a 264-foot-high wheel powered by steam, carrying over 2,000 passengers at once.

The ride became a sensation, lifting 1.5 million fairgoers into the sky, but the story behind it is as dramatic as the invention itself. This episode dives into the rivalry, the spectacle, and the lasting legacy that turned Ferris’s dream into a permanent part of global culture.

So which truly stood taller in history—Eiffel’s tower or Ferris’s wheel?

📚 Sources

• Larson, E. (2003). The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. Vintage Books.
  

• Anderson, N. D. (1992). Ferris Wheels: An Illustrated History. Popular Press.
  

• National Park Service. (n.d.). Inventions from the World’s Columbian Exposition. U.S. Department of the Interior.
  

• Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Ferris wheel (1893).
  

• Smithsonian Institution Archives. (n.d.). George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. and the 1893 Wheel.
  

#FerrisWheel #EiffelTower #WorldsFair #AmericanHistory #EngineeringMarvels #DailyFacts #historyfacts #carnivalrides #chicago Music thanks to Zapsplat.