Halcyon Days in the Dream City

by Mrs. D. C. Taylor

Continued from Part 6

In the very centre, midway of “The Midway” stands a high wooden enclosure, and rising above it like a gigantic spider’s-web, the “Ferris Wheel.”

After the usual “open sesame” we enter the enclosure, and mounting a flight of steps find ourselves upon a high platform with the revolving monster only a few feet distant, but protected by a stout wooden paling. We, with some hundred other sight-seers, wait patiently for some moments when the wheel becomes stationary, and a blue-coated, much bebuttoned official slides back the paling gateway, opens a car door and invites us to enter.

We find ourselves in a large room lighted by long rows of continuous panes of glass on two sides, and having two rows of light wooden chairs ranged up and down its length.[1] We seat ourselves on the side looking toward the “Fair Ground,” and await events. Apparently nothing happens; we seem to be simply seated in a quiet room gazing out of the window; presently we discover that the earth is gently receding from us; we remain stationary, but the long Midway street with its thronging visitants is dropping slowly down, down, until its buildings turn into miniatures and the people into hurrying mites.[2]

The Fair Ground lies like a misty mirage in the distance, and as if on the extreme edge of the world the lake looms like a deep blue cloud, shot with glittering stars. Finally, all these objects become merged in a sketchy, birds-eye view in which nothing definite can be traced.

Suddenly we find ourselves looking down upon the red painted roof of the car immediately below us, this recedes, and passing over to the other side of the car, we see a map of Washington and South Parks delicately and flatly outlined in rich greens, and warm browns, dotted with steel colored and white spots. Then gradually, the map begins to grow larger, the brown ribbons broaden into roadways; the steely dots become broad sheets of water, the white dots turn into buildings, and glancing at the foot of the wheel we see “Old Vienna” like a child’s toy village, its tiny chairs and tables looking as if they could be packed away in a small box.

They come nearer and nearer, the broad Midway rises to our level, and we step out of the car—convinced that we have not been moving, but the rest of the world has been taken with a vertigo, and only just now recovered its equilibrium. So devoid of all sense of motion, strangeness or fear was the experience, that after alighting we stood and gazed in wonder at this exquisite piece of mechanism, so delicately poised, so scientifically constructed and engineered, that the sense of motion is entirely obliterated and the “Ferris Wheel” seems the one stable, immovable object in a world that revolves around it, like satellites around a planet.

Continued in Part 8

NOTES

[1] Each of the thirty-six passenger cars was twenty-four feet long, thirteen feet wide, and ten feet high. Up to sixty passengers could fill a car, with some seated on the forty revolving chairs and others standing.

[2] Mrs. Taylor’s description of her ascent indicates that the Ferris wheel rose on the east side (toward the fairgrounds) and descended on the west side (toward Washington Park).