Jack Klasey

The Prince of Wheelwrights Jack Klasey

In 1889, Gustave Eiffel's 984-foot iron tower was the wonder and signature engineering accomplishment of the Paris Universal Exposition. In 1892, a young American civil engineer -responding to a challenge to create a symbolic attraction for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago-proposed erecting a huge steel structure that would have an important characteristic that the Eiffel Tower did not: it would move. George Ferris envisioned a rotating 250-foot steel wheel that would carry more than 2,000 passengers at a time. Many of his fellow engineers doubted Ferris' wheel could be built. Columbian Exposition officials reluctantly granted permission to erect the wheel. In an incredible feat of logistics, Ferris marshalled the efforts of the nation's leading steel mills and fabricating companies to produce the wheel's thousands of component parts and ship them to Chicago for assembly. On June 21, 1893, the Ferris Wheel carried its first paying riders to a vantage point high above the fairgrounds. It quickly became the symbol and one of the most popular attractions of the World's Fair, drawing nearly 1.5 million riders. The Prince of Wheelwrights: George Ferris and His Great Wheel goes beyond the tragically short life story of a successful and innovative civil engineer to present the first thoroughly researched and highly detailed history of the Ferris Wheel itself. Drawing upon contemporary newspaper and magazine sources, as well as Ferris' own words, the book traces the Wheel's thirteen-year existence from its genesis at dinner in a Chicago restaurant to its dynamiting and conversion to scrap metal in St. Louis, Missouri. at the end of a second World's Fair appearance.