Greetings family, friends, neighbors, and amusement park buddies! Ferris wheels are synonymous with carnivals, amusement parks, and fairs, but for six months in 1894 the Firth Wheel was "over the moon" for the million and a half visitors to the California Midwinter International Exposition held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.....Today's historical Snippet. Bill
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SAN FRANCISCO’S FIRTH WHEEL
Chronicle Publisher Michael de Young had a back-up plan when George Ferris refused to bring his popular 1893 Columbian Exposition wheel attraction to San Francisco. De Young had headed California’s exhibition at the Chicago event where he recognized the value of creating a San Francisco international exposition to showcase the city’s climate, economy, and resourcefulness. de Young formed a contingent of city and business leaders to create the California Midwinter International Exposition in Golden Gate Park with an opening day in January 1894. Just six short months away.
Work immediately got underway in the parks Music Concourse carving out the locations for four Imaginative imitation Middle Eastern and Far Eastern exhibition halls; Manufacturing and Liberal Arts, Horticultural and Agricultural, Fine Arts, and Administration. Boner’s Electric Tower with “the largest searchlight in the world” was planned as the iconic center piece of the concourse and encircling the halls were spaces for eager concessionaires. L.A.Thompson began installing his Scenic Railway roller coaster, and a Japanese Village and Chinese Theatre were among scores of international exhibits, rides, shows, and food vendors under construction, however the space behind the frightening Dante’s Inferno dark ride,reserved for George Ferris’s wheel remained vacant.
De Yong and the Midwinter Exposition’s executive committee approached mechanical draughtsman, engineer, designer of the Market and Sutter Street Cable Railway, and co-owner of San Francisco’s Union Iron Works, Joseph K. Firth, to design, construct, and erect a similar smaller wheel ride attraction with unique patents in less than six months. The massive steel and wood structure was completed on time lifting riders one hundred and twenty feet into the air in sixteen enclosed carriages of ten riders each for spectacular views of the exposition, Golden Gate Park, and beyond. Loading, unloading and a single revolution of the Firth Wheel took a full twenty minutes. Nearly a million and a half visitors passed through the turnstiles by the closing and dismantling of the six month exposition.
Real Estate tycoon and then Mayor of San Francisco Adolph Sutro purchased the Firth Wheel and several other Midwinter Exposition rides for his pleasure Grounds amusement park, however with his passing in 1898 the short lived enterprise fell into disrepair and the Firth Wheel, that had brought so much joy to so many people, stood abandoned on the cold and foggy bluff until 1911 when it was torn down and scrapped.
The only traces of the California Midwinter International Exposition after 130 years is the Japanese Tea Garden and several surviving statues in the Golden Gate Park music concourse.
-Bill 5/25
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