George Washington and Martha Ferris had a son in 1859 and named him after his father.

Young George studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and became an engineer. In the 1880s he built railroads, tunnels, and bridges, including a series of bridges across the Ohio River.

By the early 1890s, he had earned a reputation as an engineer, and so he was called upon to design something special for the World Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. What Ferris came up with was a wheel 250 feet in diameter that could carry mom than 2,000 passengers into the air and back down again.

The ride was the highlight of the exhibition, attracting 1.5 million passengers. It spawned many imitators, and soon no fair was complete without its own ferris wheel.