THE GREAT CHICAGO QUIZ SHOW serves up some 1893 World’s Fair trivia

The Great Chicago Quiz Show on WTTW in Chicago has host Geoffrey Baer asking contestants (including some famous Chicagoans) trivia questions about their city. No program about Chicago history would be complete without at least a few tidbits from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, and Geoffrey asked contestants several , including: • The world’s first Ferris Wheel was a hit at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park. In fact, it was so popular that immediately after the [...]

By Scott|2021-04-30T16:06:45-05:00April 30th, 2021|Categories: NEWS, VIDEO|Tags: , , |0 Comments

“Halcyon Days in the Dream City’’ Part 7: The Ferris Wheel

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 [...]

By Scott|2021-04-02T11:21:54-05:00November 11th, 2020|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |1 Comment

Chicago00 Launches 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition VR Web Portal

Grab your Columbian Exposition return pass and head back to the 1893 World’s Fair virtually with the Chicago 00 Project, which has launched their 1893 World's Columbian Exposition VR web portal at https://1893.chicago00.org/. A partnership between the Chicago History Museum and filmmaker Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, the Chicago 00 Project has been producing a series of interactive multimedia experiences using historical images of important sites and events in Chicago. Their augmented reality app allows participant to overlay historic photos with [...]

Transported to the Land of the Fairies: A Ride on the Ferris Wheel

The great Ferris Wheel on the Midway Plaisance of the World’s Columbian Exposition opened to the public on June 21, 1893. The following account comes from Mrs. Julia Waugh, whose letter describing her ride on the Ferris Wheel was published in the July 7, 1893, issue of the Crawfordsville (IN) Weekly Journal. She notes that her “memorable trip” was taken the second day after the opening of the attraction, when 1,000 tickets were purchased in the first two hours. [...]

By Scott|2020-06-13T14:39:34-05:00June 21st, 2020|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |2 Comments

CANCELLED May 30, 2020: Ride Like the Devil in a “Devil in the White City” Bike Tour (Chicago)

This event has been cancelled. The Chicago History Museum is offering a “Ride Like the Devil: a Devil in the White City Bike Tour” on Saturday, May 30, 2019, from 9:45 am to 12:45 pm. Cycle back to 1893, pedal past sites related to the World’s Fair, and discover its lasting influence on Chicago. Along the way, tour guide Greg Borzo, author of Where to Bike Chicago, will uncover Daniel Burnham’s grand plans and the devilish doings of H. [...]

WGN-TV Documentary Explores “Hidden History” of African Americans at the 1893 World’s Fair

In honor of Black History Month WGN-TV aired a new half-hour documentary show titled “Hidden History” that included a segment on the experience of African Americans at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. WGN News anchor Micah Materre opened the six-minute segment reminding viewers that “African Americans have a long and storied history in Chicago,” with one important moment of African Americans influence on the world taking place in and around the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago’s Jackson Park. Historian [...]

By Scott|2024-08-23T09:30:45-05:00February 29th, 2020|Categories: NEWS, VIDEO|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

World’s Fair Merch from the Driehaus Museum

While visiting “Eternal Light: The Sacred Stained-Glass Windows of Louis Comfort Tiffany” at the Driehaus Museum, we spotted some 1893 World’s Fair products in the third-floor gift shop. A few came home with us. The iconic Ferris Wheel is featured on a T-shirt ($24) that comes in two colors, an enamel pin ($10) and a pair of earrings. Some Oolong Tea ($9.99) from the Oliver Pluff & Co. comes in a special tin featuring Charles Graham’s lovely artwork of [...]

By Scott|2020-02-09T19:28:28-06:00February 10th, 2020|Categories: PRODUCTS|Tags: |2 Comments

THE CITY OF WONDERS: A Souvenir of the World’s Fair (Chapter 10)

THE CITY OF WONDERS A SOUVENIR OF THE WORLD'S FAIR by Mary Catherine Crowley (1894)

Looking for the Paris Wheel

The man whose name is synonymous with the kinetic attraction he erected on the Midway Plaisance of the 1893 World’s Fair died of typhoid fever on November 22, 1896, at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh. Though now unforgettably linked to his engineering marvel, the name of George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. was unfamiliar to many fairgoers who walked by the great wheel, as shown in this story published in the October 29, 1893, issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune. Persist [...]

By Scott|2025-11-18T09:28:19-06:00November 22nd, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |0 Comments

Echoes of the White City Part 3: “Fourteen Villages and a Jail”

Entering Battery D Armory, visitors to “Echoes of the White City” faced a replica in miniature of one of the greatest attractions of the 1893 World’s Fair

Oct. 24, 2019: “A History of Illinois Ferris Wheels and the 1893 Columbian Exposition” (Assumption, IL)

Macon County Historian Mark Sorensen will speak about the 1893 World’s Fair at the Oct. 24 meeting of the Assumption Historical Society in Assumption, IL. His illustrated talk on “A History of Illinois Ferris Wheels and the 1893 Columbian Exposition” starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Bromwell Lodge (225 N. Chestnut St. in Assumption) and is free and open to the public.

By Scott|2022-03-05T10:55:36-06:00October 16th, 2019|Categories: EVENTS (past)|Tags: |0 Comments

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR – A View Through the Ferris Wheel (p. 85)

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS Page 85 – A VIEW THROUGH THE FERRIS WHEEL A VIEW THROUGH THE FERRIS WHEEL.—Imposing as was the Ferris Wheel seen from a distance, a great object towering aloft and showing the location of the Fair from a distance of miles away, it was scarcely less impressive when its monster parts were examined from one of the cars which revolved with it, carrying their hosts of passengers. It was not [...]

By Randy|2021-05-16T11:25:24-05:00August 26th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Watch a Vintage Ferris Wheel Poster Be Restored

Happy Ferris Wheel Day! On June 21, 1893, the Ferris Wheel on the Midway Plaisance at the 1893 World’s Fair took its first visitors for a ride in the sky. While the original wheel is long gone, its iconic image graces collectibles too numerous to count. A glass paperweight showing the Ferris Wheel from World’s Fair Auction. Collectors of antiques ponder and debate an important question: Should items be restored or preserved as is? Unrestored antiques may [...]

By Scott|2019-06-21T14:52:59-05:00June 21st, 2019|Categories: ANTIQUES|Tags: |0 Comments

May 17-Aug. 18, 2019: “Worlds of Wonder: Remembering Chicagoland’s Amusement Parks” exhibit (Elmhust, IL)

The Elmhurst History Museum will open a new exhibit titled “Worlds of Wonder: Remembering Chicagoland's Amusement Parks” on May 17, 2019. Chicago has had its share of jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring amusement parks, from the rotations of the first Ferris Wheel at the 1893 World's Columbian exhibition to the ups-and-downs of The Bobs at Riverview. This new exhibit celebrates Chicago's favorite destinations for fun and thrills, including early trolley parks and suburban attractions like Kiddieland and Dispensa's Kiddie Kingdom. Learn about [...]

By Scott|2019-09-02T09:55:27-05:00April 17th, 2019|Categories: EVENTS (past), EXHIBITS (past)|Tags: |0 Comments

May 4, 2019: Ride Like the Devil in a “Devil in the White City” Bike Tour (Chicago)

The Chicago History Museum is offering a “Ride Like the Devil: a Devil in the White City Bike Tour” on Saturday, May 4, 2019, from 9:45 am to 12:45 pm. Cycle back to 1893, pedal past sites related to the World’s Fair, and discover its lasting influence on Chicago. Along the way, tour guide Greg Borzo, author of Where to Bike Chicago, will uncover Daniel Burnham’s grand plans and the devilish doings of H. H. Holmes. The route will [...]

Ice and Snow on the Midway Plaisance

Here's some cool news from the July 8, 1893, Chicago Dispatch: Yesterday the thermometer nearly reached the one hundredth degree mark, and to-day is not much cooler, yet amidst this sultry heat of midsummer many thousands of visitors to the Midway Plaisance can, and many did, enjoy the enviable pleasure of a genuine sleigh ride on pure white snow. Not imitation snow, but the pure crystal itself. It is in itself worth a trip to Chicago and to the [...]

By Scott|2019-02-01T06:05:18-06:00February 1st, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , |1 Comment

“World’s Fairs and the Death of Optimism”

Darran Anderson’s essay “World’s Fairs and the Death of Optimism” (citylab.com, October 3, 2018) addresses the fading luster of World’s Fairs and uses some examples from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago to illustrate his point. “World’s Fairs fell from grace,” writes Anderson. “Who could blame nostalgia towards witnessing the Crystal Palace, the head of the Statue of Liberty in a Parisian park, the extra-terrestrial Trylon and Perisphere, or the Tower of the Sun? This was bolstered by [...]

Oct. 6-20, 2018: Chicago a cappella Sings Music of the Columbian Exposition

The vocal group Chicago a cappella will feature some music from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in a concert titled “Chicago, Chicago with Geoffrey Baer.” The concert includes the patriotic song “America the Beautiful” with music by Samuel Ward and lyrics by Katharine Lee Bates (arr. Deke Sharon). During the summer of 1893, Bates traveled from her home in Boston to Colorado. The English professor and writer was so moved by the scenes along the way that she preserved [...]

By Scott|2022-07-08T10:00:15-05:00October 6th, 2018|Categories: EVENTS (past)|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Pictures from “Pictures from an Exposition”

“Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair” has opened at the Newberry Library. “Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair” has opened at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The exhibition of nearly two hundred items from the World’s Columbian Exposition fills two galleries in the Library’s newly renovated main floor. Displays are organized into sections on: • Introduction • Construction • Maps and Bird’s Eye Views • Staff and Sculpture • Publicity and [...]

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