<P> A Frenchman, Antonio Manguino, introduced the idea to America in 1848, when he constructed a wooden pleasure wheel to attract visitors to his start - up fair in Walton Spring, Georgia . </P> <P> In 1892, William Somers installed three fifty - foot wooden wheels at Asbury Park, New Jersey; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Coney Island, New York . The following year he was granted the first U.S. patent for a "Roundabout". George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. rode on Somers' wheel in Atlantic City prior to designing his wheel for the World's Columbian Exposition . In 1893 Somers filed a lawsuit against Ferris for patent infringement, however Ferris and his lawyers successfully argued that the Ferris Wheel and its technology differed greatly from Somers' wheel, and the case was dismissed . </P> <P> The original Ferris Wheel, sometimes also referred to as the Chicago Wheel, was designed and constructed by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr...</P> <P> With a height of 80.4 metres (264 ft) it was the tallest attraction at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, where it opened to the public on June 21, 1893 . It was intended to rival the 324 - metre (1,063 ft) Eiffel Tower, the centerpiece of the 1889 Paris Exposition . </P>

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