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Explore the unmatched
grandeur of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the greatest and
grandest ever held, spanning 1261 acres in Forest Park.
The St. Louis World's Fair
in 1904 was the greatest and the grandest there has ever been. To put this in
perspective the Chicago World's Fair in 1891 took a little over 600 acres of
flatlands to house it whereas the St Louis Fair spilled out over 1271 acres
of former wilderness, an area known then as it is now, as Forest Park.
By 1904 the United States was rapidly becoming
the nation of destiny that would soon lay claim to its industrial, scientific,
and moral leadership over the rest of the planet. So on opening day April 30,
1904, Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company President, David R. Francis, no
doubt expressed the sentiment of a whole nation when he announced to the 200,000
visitors who had showed up: "So thoroughly does it represent the world's
civilizations, that if all man's other works were by some unspeakable catastrophe
blotted out, the records here established by the assembled nations would afford
all necessary standards for the rebuilding of our civilization."
As the man in charge of building the enormous
spectacle and showcase, David Francis and his partners had to overcome an enormous
series of both man made and natural obstacles to the completion of the fairgrounds
from a group of privately owned and undeveloped wooded tracts to an unforgetable
site that would command the imagination of millions of fair goers. Just one
of the challenges was the rechanneling of the River Des Peres in the middle
of winter. This river meandered throughout the area the fair's large ornate
palaces were to occupy. Not only was it in the way, it was prone to flooding,
so a new channel was dug through a foot of frozen ground in the middle of winter
so the water could course through a new ditch sided with wood which its builders
covered with dirt for future fair growers to cross. Obstinate and often unscrupulous
land owners also stood in the way of the fair's architects who needed a lot
more than the 600 original acres for a fair of such magnitude that it could
later claim to be the biggest and best ever.
Historically the timing was perfect for an exposition
that would reflect a country's idealistic hopes for a much better world and
for a civilization that was approaching its zenith. Ten years later, 1914, would
bring in the most devastating war that had ever been fought-----the war to end
all wars. But this was ten years earlier. The Kaiser of Germany was closely
related to the Russian Tsar as was the royal family of England who also were
pals of the Archduke of Austria Hungary and his family. Back then these people
did a lot more than just visiting each other on their yachts. They married into
each other's families. All of this would change in World War I which saw the
complete dissolution of the Czars, the Kaisers, and the Hapsburg royal families.
In 1876 Custer and his men were massacred at
the Little Big Horn but by the end of the year the Sioux and Cheyenne were no
longer a threat to whites migrating westward. Three years later, Thomas Edison,
invented the incandescent electric lamp in 1879 just twenty-five years prior
to the World's Fair's grand opening.
Edison was an American, who later went on to
obtain patents for the phonograph and the motion picture projector. By 1904
the designers of the World's Fair gave center stage to Edison's invention. Festival
Hall, which at over 200 feet high, claimed to have a larger dome than St. Peter's
basilica in Rome, was transformed at night by thousands of lights that had been
arranged around its exterior and along the Cascades which pumped forty-five
thousand gallons of water a minute from in front of Festival Hall to the Grand
Basin. The celebration of electricity and its potential for changing the way
mankind would live in the twentieth century was further dramatized by the Palace
of Electricity and Machinery, a project over which Edison presided himself.
There was to be a division of Anthropology which
included the Philippine Reservation which occupied forty-seven acres now occupied
by the current campus of Fontbonne College. Traditional Philippine village structures
were built for display here. Other sections in this division had American plains
Indian men and women building lodges before the fairgoers, Belgian Congo tribesman,
and Ainu natives from the Japanese island of Hokkaido to name just a few.
I think the whole thing served to show a promise
of greatness that would be unfilfilled. Through being able to pump all those
thousands of gallons of water through the cascades, we were trying to show that
man could after all control the waters, and its lakes and oceans. Yet the unsinkable
Titanic would perish in 1912. Electricity would give us the means to enjoy lives
of unprecedented promise. The villages in the Anthropolgical area of the park
were to be evidence that mankind could get along together and that perhaps wars
would rapidly become a thing of the past. Yet just ten years later the nations
of the world would be lined up against each other to mow down millions with
their machine guns and artillery.
Back then nearly all of the huge palaces of
the fair were built of staff, a compound of plaster of Paris and fiber, being
built to withstand only eight months of use, which is how long the fair lasted.
These structures cost a half million or a little more to build which was a
substantial
sum in those days. Only the
St Louis Art Museum, called then the Palace of Fine Arts, was built
to last. At a cost then of a million dollars, this enduring structure was hidden
from view behind Festival Hall, which dominated Art Hill in 1904.
And when it was over, it was over. All the buildings
came down except for the Palace of Fine Arts. But the memories would last, memories
of a time when it was hoped that civilization would flourish and that wars would
become a thing of the past. World War I and its millions of dead would give
way to the generation of the twenties--a disillusioned no longer idealistic
generation and that would give way to World War II and its even more millions
of dead. Things would never be the same.
There had never been a world's fair of this
magnitude before and there never would be since. The Saint Louis World's Fair
in 1904 was the greatest and the grandest there has ever been. To put this in
perspective the Chicago World's Fair in 1891 took a little over 600 acres of
flatlands to house it whereas the St Louis Fair spilled out over 1271 acres
of former wilderness, an area known then as it is now, as Forest Park.
By 1904 the United States was rapidly becoming
the nation of destiny that would soon lay claim to its industrial, scientific,
and moral leadership over the rest of the planet. So on opening day April 30,
1904, Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company President, David R. Francis, no
doubt expressed the sentiment of a whole nation when he announced to the 200,000
visitors who had showed up: "So thoroughly does it represent the world's
civilizations, that if all man's other works were by some unspeakable catastrophe
blotted out, the records here established by the assembled nations would afford
all necessary standards for the rebuilding of our civilization."
As the man in charge of building the enormous
spectacle and showcase, David Francis and his partners had to overcome an enormous
series of both man made and natural obstacles to the completion of the fairgrounds
from a group of privately owned and undeveloped wooded tracts to an unforgetable
site that would command the imagination of millions of fair goers. Just one
of the challenges was the rechanneling of the River Des Peres in the middle
of winter. This river meandered throughout the area the fair's large ornate
palaces were to occupy. Not only was it in the way, it was prone to flooding,
so a new channel was dug through a foot of frozen ground in the middle of winter
so the water could course through a new ditch sided with wood which its builders
covered with dirt for future fair growers to cross. Obstinate and often unscrupulous
land owners also stood in the way of the fair's architects who needed a lot
more than the 600 original acres for a fair of such magnitude that it could
later claim to be the biggest and best ever.
Historically the timing was perfect for an exposition
that would reflect a country's idealistic hopes for a much better world and
for a civilization that was approaching its zenith. Ten years later, 1914, would
bring in the most devastating war that had ever been fought-----the war to end
all wars. But this was ten years earlier. The Kaiser of Germany was closely
related to the Russian Tsar as was the royal family of England who also were
pals of the Archduke of Austria Hungary and his family. Back then these people
did a lot more than just visiting each other on their yachts. They married into
each other's families. All of this would change in World War I which saw the
complete dissolution of the Czars, the Kaisers, and the Hapsburg royal families.
In 1876 Custer and his men were massacred at
the Little Big Horn but by the end of the year the Sioux and Cheyenne were no
longer a threat to whites migrating westward. Three years later, Thomas Edison,
invented the incandescent electric lamp in 1879 just twenty-five years prior
to the World's Fair's grand opening.
Edison was an American, who later went on to
obtain patents for the phonograph and the motion picture projector. By 1904
the designers of the World's Fair gave center stage to Edison's invention. Festival
Hall, which at over 200 feet high, claimed to have a larger dome than St. Peter's
basilica in Rome, was transformed at night by thousands of lights that had been
arranged around its exterior and along the Cascades which pumped forty-five
thousand gallons of water a minute from in front of Festival Hall to the Grand
Basin. The celebration of electricity and its potential for changing the way
mankind would live in the twentieth century was further dramatized by the Palace
of Electricity and Machinery, a project over which Edison presided himself.
There was to be a division of Anthropology which
included the Philippine Reservation which occupied forty-seven acres now occupied
by the current campus of Fontbonne College. Traditional Philippine village structures
were built for display here. Other sections in this division had American plains
Indian men and women building lodges before the fairgoers, Belgian Congo tribesman,
and Ainu natives from the Japanese island of Hokkaido to name just a few.
I think the whole thing served to show a promise
of greatness that would be unfilfilled. Through being able to pump all those
thousands of gallons of water through the cascades, we were trying to show that
man could after all control the waters, and its lakes and oceans. Yet the unsinkable
Titanic would perish in 1912. Electricity would give us the means to enjoy lives
of unprecedented promise. The villages in the Anthropolgical area of the park
were to be evidence that mankind could get along together and that perhaps wars
would rapidly become a thing of the past. Yet just ten years later the nations
of the world would be lined up against each other to mow down millions with
their machine guns and artillery.
Back then nearly all of the huge palaces of
the fair were built of staff, a compound of plaster of Paris and fiber, being
built to withstand only eight months of use, which is how long the fair lasted.
These structures cost a half million or a little more to build which was a
substantial
sum in those days. Only the
St Louis Art Museum, called then the Palace of Fine Arts, was built
to last. At a cost then of a million dollars, this enduring structure was hidden
from view behind Festival Hall, which dominated Art Hill in 1904.
And when it was over, it was over. All the buildings
came down except for the Palace of Fine Arts. But the memories would last, memories
of a time when it was hoped that civilization would flourish and that wars would
become a thing of the past. World War I and its millions of dead would give
way to the generation of the twenties--a disillusioned no longer idealistic
generation and that would give way to World War II and its even more millions
of dead. Things would never be the same.
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