What Happened to the Original Ferris Wheel

The original Ferris Wheel no longer exists. It ran at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition in the summer and autumn of 1893, stood idle on the Midway through the winter, and was taken apart in the spring of 1894.^{[2, p. 106]}Re-erected on Chicago’s North Clark Street in 1895–96, it operated there for several more seasons.^{[2, pp. 108–111][8]}Sold to the Chicago House Wrecking Company in 1903, it was moved by rail to St. Louis and ran one final season at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Forest Park.^{[2, pp. 118–119][10, pp. 1, 4–9][11, pp. 2–7][12, Item 8]}It turned for the last time on 13 January 1906 and was dynamited on 11 May 1906, then sold for scrap.^{[2, p. 120][11, pp. 2–7][12, Item 8][13, p. 8 (Chicago Tribune dispatch of 12 May)]}

That is the whole arc, and the rest of this page walks it in order. Two things in it do not resolve. What the Wheel fetched at the 1903 sale is reported two ways, and where the great axle ended up is still argued — a 1943 dig and a 2007 magnetometer survey in Forest Park looked for it and never excavated what they found.^{[2, pp. 118–119][2, p. 120][9][10, pp. 4–9][11, pp. 2–7][13, p. 8][14]}

On 1 November 1893 Exposition guards tried to close the Wheel. A contemporary report quotes Ferris refusing to pay $75,000 and intending to run until 30 November; lawsuits followed both ways.^{[1, p. 2][2, pp. 100–101]}A contemporary report quotes Ferris refusing a $75,000 Exposition demand in early November 1893. Weingardt dates the Exposition’s suit for that sum to 9 November. The filing date has not been independently read in a court record.^{[1, p. 2][2, p. 104][2, p. 116]}

Weingardt estimates the Exposition took about $225,000 clear from the Wheel and the company perhaps $150,000 to $163,000 before its own costs.^{[2, pp. 102, 104]}Those are later estimates, not the stockholders’ 1,453,611 paid-admissions figure from the fair season.

Weingardt records the Wheel dismantled in spring 1894 for $14,833 and stored on rail cars.^{[2, p. 106]}Weingardt has the Garden City patent suit dismissed on 3 July 1894 with $26.50 costs to Ferris, and states that Ferris never patented the Wheel. A 23 November 1893 New Jersey paper reported that the highest court had found infringement and royalties due. The case file has been located and not read; the outcome stays in dispute.^{[2, p. 107][2, p. 96][3, p. 3][4][5]}

William Somers’s U.S. Patent 489,238, filed 28 October 1891 and issued 3 January 1893, describes a wooden-rim roundabout with radial spokes, swinging seats, and a cable drive — the patent later asserted against Ferris.^{[2, pp. 93–94, 107][6][7]}The case file itself has not been read here in full; the public wording stays with what Weingardt and the issued patent establish.

Weingardt traces the Wheel’s re-erection at North Clark Street in 1895–96 and the neighbourhood opposition; the Illinois courts’ own history records the 1896 Supreme Court case.^{[2, pp. 108–111][8]}The Illinois courts’ own history records that the Supreme Court denied the Ferris Wheel Company a dram-shop permit for the Clark Street park in 1896; the exact reporter citation is still being checked.^{[2, pp. 108–111][8]}

Weingardt records the company bankrupt by November 1896; the Hyde Park Historical Society reprints the Tribune’s 1903 note of an $1,800 receiver’s sale.^{[2, pp. 111, 118][9]}Two months after Ferris’s death, Weingardt records, the court gave the Exposition an $84,000 judgment against the company.^{[2, p. 116]}

Sold to the Chicago House Wrecking Company in 1903, the Wheel was moved by rail to St. Louis for the 1904 fair. Harris’s later study gives 175 freight cars; a St. Louis library article gives 178.^{[2, pp. 118–119][10, pp. 1, 4–9][11, pp. 2–7][12, Item 8]}The 1903 salvage sale is reported as $1,800 in a Chicago Tribune item of 3 June and as $8,150 in later St. Louis summaries of 7 June; both figures stay on the page until the original notices are compared.^{[2, pp. 118–119][9][11, pp. 2–7]}

The Wheel ran again at the 1904 St. Louis fair, in Forest Park, where the Louisiana Purchase Exposition had been laid out. Company-family papers later published by Leo Harris give 175 freight cars, a 44-person St. Louis crew, and $267,000 gross; Weingardt had $215,000 and “over a million” riders. A St. Louis library summary says 178 cars. Both receipt figures come from the same family papers at different removes, and neither is picked here.^{[2, pp. 118–119][10, pp. 1, 4–9][11, pp. 2–7]}

That season was the last. Nine years after the Chicago fair closed, and seven after Ferris’s own death, the machine had outlived its concession, its company and its engineer, and it had one winter left to run.

A St. Louis County Library summary, following local papers, dates the last revolution to 13 January 1906, with three people aboard.^{[2, p. 120][11, pp. 2–7]}The Wheel was dynamited on 11 May 1906 — 200 pounds in two stages, according to the Chicago Tribune dispatch — and scrapped; what became of the great axle is unresolved.^{[2, p. 120][12, Item 8][13, p. 8 (Chicago Tribune dispatch of 12 May)]}

The axle’s fate is unresolved. One line of evidence, from Chicago House Wrecking Company records, says it was cut up in Chicago around 1919; St. Louis searches in 1943 and 2007 looked for a buried shaft and did not excavate.^{[2, p. 120][10, pp. 4–9][11, pp. 2–7][13, p. 8][14]}

Weingardt traces the first imitations: Basset’s great wheels in London, Blackpool, Vienna and Paris, and Sullivan’s portable wheels from Jacksonville, Illinois.^{[2, pp. 96, 105, 109–110, 121]}Those later wheels are not this machine. The original is the 1893 tension wheel whose parts were sold for scrap in 1906.

Where did the original Ferris Wheel go?

It stood in three places. It ran on the Midway Plaisance at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition from 21 June 1893 until Exposition guards tried to close it on 1 November; it stood idle through the winter and was dismantled in spring 1894. Re-erected on Chicago’s North Clark Street in 1895–96, near Lincoln Park, it anchored the small amusement park there until it was sold in 1903. Moved by rail to St. Louis, it ran one more season at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Forest Park and was dynamited there on 11 May 1906.^{[1, p. 2][2, pp. 100–101][2, p. 106][2, pp. 108–111][2, pp. 118–119][2, p. 120][8][10, pp. 1, 4–9][11, pp. 2–7][12, Item 8][13, p. 8 (Chicago Tribune dispatch of 12 May)]}

Is any part of the original Ferris Wheel left?

No part of the 1893 machine is known to survive. It was dynamited on 11 May 1906 and sold for scrap, and Weingardt records that no claim about surviving parts has been substantiated. What the scrap was worth is itself reported two ways: the Chicago Tribune dispatch of 12 May 1906 estimated it at $8,000, while Leo Harris’s account from the wrecking company’s records, and Weingardt following it, give $75,950 for the boilers, engines, glass, seats and some 2,700 tons of iron and steel. The one component whose whereabouts are still argued about is the great forged axle, and that argument is unresolved.^{[2, p. 120][10, pp. 4–9][11, pp. 2–7][12, Item 8][13, p. 8 (Chicago Tribune dispatch of 12 May)][13, p. 8][14]}

Where is the Ferris Wheel axle?

Unresolved, and three positions survive. One line of evidence, from Chicago House Wrecking Company records restated by Leo Harris in 2011 and by Mike Truax in 2022, says the axle went back to the company’s Chicago yards and was cut up around 1918–19. St. Louis tradition holds that it was buried near where the Wheel stood. Searches looked for it: a 1943 War Production Board dig, and Sheldon Breiner’s magnetometer survey of 13–14 May 2007, which found a large anomaly under Skinker Boulevard consistent with a buried steel cylinder some 45 feet long. That anomaly was never excavated, and a geophysical anomaly is not an identification.^{[2, p. 120][10, pp. 4–9][11, pp. 2–7][13, p. 8][14]}

How was the Ferris Wheel demolished?

By dynamite, at St. Louis, on 11 May 1906 — 200 pounds in two stages, according to the Chicago Tribune dispatch carried by The Morning Astorian of 13 May. The same dispatch reports that the wheel crumpled rather than toppled, and that the 45-ton axle dropped with the wreck. The structure was then scrapped.^{[2, p. 120][12, Item 8][13, p. 8 (Chicago Tribune dispatch of 12 May)]}

What was the original Ferris Wheel sold for?

Both surviving figures are on the record and they disagree. A Chicago Tribune item of 3 June 1903, reprinted by the Hyde Park Historical Society, reports $1,800 at a receiver’s sale; a St. Louis County Library article footnoted to the Post-Dispatch gives $8,150 reported on 7 June 1903. The two may describe a court-sale figure and a later or different accounting. Neither has been checked against the original notices here, so neither is picked.^{[2, pp. 118–119][9][11, pp. 2–7]}

How many freight cars carried it to St. Louis?

That too is disputed. Leo Harris’s 2011 study, drawing on Chicago House Wrecking Company records, gives 175 freight cars; a St. Louis County Library article gives 178. Weingardt, following Eleanor Harris, had 175 flat cars.^{[2, pp. 118–119][10, pp. 1, 4–9][11, pp. 2–7][12, Item 8]}