“Famous Names” served as the Final Jeopardy category on the June 12, 2024, episode of Jeopardy! The answer was: “Vying with Eiffel, this engineer wanted to create big; an admiring account said the Obelisk of Luxor is too short to be a spoke.” Two of the contestants came up with correct question of is “Who is Ferris?”
Pittsburgh engineer George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., designed his great iron wheel for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. The Ferris Wheel rose more than 250 feet above the center of the Midway Plaisance.
The Ferris Wheel from the north, showing the Obelisks of Luxor in the Street in Cairo attraction in the foreground. [Image from Waterman cabinet card.]
Columbian Exposition enthusiasts may recognize that a reproduction of the Obelisks of Luxor stood on the Midway Plaisance just a few feet north of the Ferris Wheel. The two 75-foot-tall obelisks stood in front of the Temple of Luxor in the Street in Cairo compound. On one of them was inscribed in hieroglyphs the name of President Grover Cleveland!
The reproduction of the Temple of Luxor (Luksor) stood adjacent to the Street in Cairo. [Image from Arnold, C. D.; Higinbotham, H. D. Official Views of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Press Chicago Photo-gravure Co., 1893.]