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Where’s the Ferris Wheel!?

I recently finished Devil In The White City (which was amazing) and these photos are a great visual aid for the book. Sadly, photos of the fairgrounds are pretty rare, so this is a great find!

That is a wonderful book.

These are wonderful photos. I fear that such photos of our time will not exist in 3008, having all been left to the dustbin of a billion failed hard drives without backups.

Such a good book! I love looking at photos of that time period…so cool to see how things ran back then.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have another World’s Columbian Exposition here in Chicago? Maybe it could be done with facilities also used for a possible Olympics.

That would be really cool, Tom. I worry about the CTA (Olympics or Exposition) and whether it could sustain such a large volume of people.

Also check out http://columbus.gl.iit.edu/

Feel free (because it is) to browse some of the documents available from or about the expo:

http://www.archive.org/details/dedicatoryopenin00worl Dedicatory and opening ceremonies of the World’s Columbian exposition : historical and descriptive (1893)

http://www.archive.org/details/artisticguidetoc002614mbp The Artistic Guide To Chicago And The World S Columbian Exposition (1891)

http://www.archive.org/details/illinoisbuilding93illi The Illinois building and exhibits therein at the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893 (1893)

And so on.

If Chicago hosted another World’s Fair, all Chicagoans might actually be able to attend as opposed to the extremely segregated version that occurred in the 1800’s.

http://ericstoller.com/blog/2006/08/24/the-color-proof-fair/