That a day would come when we’d all be discussing a giant Ferris wheel on the Strip seems unimaginable, even with all the crazy things that have happened over the years and in the last five minutes.
But replace the cars of your typical ride with stylish, glass-enclosed cabins and call the 550-foot tall High Roller an observation wheel, and you have some serious talking points.
Oddly, though, this isn’t the first Ferris wheel to hit the midway. According to the owners of Bonanza Gifts, sometime back in the 1960s, a functioning Ferris wheel, designed for actual rides, was built atop the building at Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard.
Though it may have closed after only a short time due to security or insurance concerns (the details, they say, aren’t clear), the ticket booths were still on the roof and the stairs to the ride were still attached to the building when they bought it in the 1980s.