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A SHORT LIFE
When the fair ended in November, the Giant Wheel remained behind,
silent and ghostly. I didn't come to see it as often. The excitement
of the wheel seemed to vanish with the fair. But I was happy
when I heard that it would be moved to another Chicago location.
Once again, tremendous effort was needed just to take the wheel
apart and re-build it on its new site. But the Giant's revival
was short-lived. I lost track of the wheel after it was moved
to St. Louis, Missouri. Then one day, a newspaper story caught
my eye. Read about the wheel's unfortunate death in the same
newspaper that I did in 1906.
From the Chicago Tribune:
FERRIS WHEEL IS BLOWN UP
Blown to pieces by a monster charge
of dynamite, the Ferris wheel came to an ignominious end yesterday
at St. Louis, after a varied career of thirteen years...
The old wheel, which had become St. Louis' white elephant died
hard. ...When the mass stopped settling it bore no resemblance
to the wheel which was so familiar to Chicago and St. Louis and
to 2,500,000 amusement seekers from all over the world,... Ferris
and his great wheel were gone but he had left, as a legacy to
generations of entertainment-seekers, the World's Greatest Ride.
Destroying the Ferris wheel required a
total of 300 pounds of dynamite. Nor did the wheel fall to one
side as the wreckers had planned. Instead, the wheel crumpled
up slowly into "a tangled mass of steel and iron thirty
or forty feet high". It was a splendid death for a noble
behemoth. (Yes, that's another of Dad's words. Look it up! Then
try it on your parents for a surprise. Maybe some of them don't
know what it means).
FERRIS JUNIOR
Today, the Ferris wheel lives again in Chicago. Nestled in the
center of Navy Pier, this wheel is surrounded by restaurants,
a museum, a theatre and shops-just what had been planned for
the original Ferris wheel in its second Chicago location on North
Clark Street. There are more cars-40 instead of 36-but each car
seats only 6 people compared to Ferris' 60! Nor is the wheel
as high, 150 feet instead of 264. But I'm not sure that either
height impresses you. After all, some of you have flown in airplanes;
most of you have been in 'skyscrapers'. You've ridden in elevators
and escalators. But consider this. The next time you ride on
Ferris Wheel Junior at Navy Pier, close your eyes for just a
moment and imagine me on the Great Wheel in 1893. Touch the sky,
tingle in the breeze, and feel the sun's rays-or even the moon's
beams! Remember this feeling. Let it linger, like I did, for
a lifetime.
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