Ferris wheel is an entertainment device used at fairs, carnivals, and amusement and theme parks. A Ferris wheel is a power-driven vertical wheel with a steel frame. Passenger cabs are mounted on the rim of the wheel. Present-day Ferris wheels stand about 40 to 45 feet (12 to 14 meters) high and carry from 12 to 16 passenger cabs.
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Early European and American entertainers built simple wooden structures called pleasure wheels. These wheels could only hold a few people at a time. The first true Ferris wheel was built by George W. Gale Ferris, a mechanical engineer in Galesburg, Illinois. Ferris built it for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The wheel was 250 feet (76 meters) in diameter. Each of its 36 cabs could hold 60 people. This Ferris wheel was used at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904 and then was sold for scrap metal.
In 1900, William E. Sullivan began making portable versions of the Ferris wheel in Jacksonville, Illinois, for the Eli Bridge Co. In England, a Ferris wheel is called an Eli wheel or a big wheel.
