1904: Down The Pike At The World’s Fair

St. Louis finally one-ups Chicago

It’s a marvel that the undisputed height of cultural achievement in St. Louis came 117 years ago. Ice cream cones, hot dogs, iced tea, the acquisition of the Philippines, and preemie incubators on display. The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition had it all. Times come and go, but the fair remains a defining event.

Years in the planning, this fair was focused on out-doing the Chicago Columbian Exposition of a decade earlier. The result was a model of successful execution on a vast scale. Between May and December of 1904, 20 million visitors were entertained on a 1,260 acre tract (twice the space taken by the Chicago fair.) 1,500 buildings constructed for this event represented 50 foreign countries and 43 of the existing 45 US states. Over 6,000 performers and 1,500 exotic animals were put to work daily. David Francis and his associates even resurrected the centerpiece of the Chicago fair, its colossal 264 foot tall Ferris Wheel, with cabins the size of railroad boxcars.

This essay deals with a significant, but culturally overlooked piece of the exposition; The Pike

It was all happening on the Pike

In 1904, the term “midway” was associated with the Chicago exposition, which ran along the Midway Plaisance. St. Louis opted for a new name, the Pike (source of the expression, ‘coming down the pike’). It ran a full mile along the north side of Lindell Boulevard and made the turn at Skinker Boulevard. Like a carnival midway today, the Pike was filled with attractions designed to entertain the masses while draining their wallets. It was successful on both counts. A 1904 advertisement in the Globe-Democrat highlighted three Pike features. Here’s a sample of what was going on in the nearly mile long concourse. 

The Baby Incubators

The Fair constructed a special building for the purpose of displaying premature babies in two dozen glass incubators. Doctors and nurses circulated as a lecturer described the heating, ventilation, and care of the “mites of humanity.” Successful? The exhibit cost a quarter per adult and 15 cents per child, and made over $181,000 profit. 

Guests could also buy baby themed souvenirs and dine at the Incubator Cafe. 

A sideshow exhibit is really nowhere to demonstrate the imperfections of early 20th century medical care. Most of the first infants put on display died, and subsequent publicity of their poor treatment led some parents later to avoid an incubator stage for their premature babies.

The Boer War

The Boer War (not the one above, directed by Frank E. Fillis) raged between Britain and most of the South African Republic between 1898 and 1902, so was on-trend in 1904 for reenactment at the Worlds Fair. It’s interesting that the “Exciting Wrestling Contest on Horseback” actually inserts US soldiers into the contest. Bet the uninvited guests did pretty well, too. The Boer War grossed nearly $680,000 over the fair’s run. 

The Battle of Transvaal was reenacted twice a day on a 15 acre tract, and involved  600 participants and 500 horses, mules and oxen. The high point of the battle was the escape of General DeWet, as he dove on horseback from a ‘cliff’  into a ‘river’. 

Another crowd pleasing struggle of the recent past was the Spanish American War of 1898. The naval battles at Manila Bay in the Philippines and Santiago in Cuba were contested daily in miniature on a large pond on the pike…to musical accompaniment. As in the battle itself, the Americans sank the entire Spanish fleet with only one U.S. casualty and no ships lost.  

The Battle of Santiago

As indicated, the battle featured 28 battleships, torpedos and submarine boats, followed by a Greek fire fountain, with a 100 foot flame, just to ensure no-one went away undazzled. 

Giving the people what they want

The essence of advertising is to make the real seem magical. This was certainly true of carnivals and circuses. While much of the 1904 Worlds Fair could trumpet progress in a wide array of sciences, the Pike existed to satisfy the more adventurous cravings of society. It was well financed, technologically sophisticated and incredibly popular with fairgoers. The organizers of the fair, a high-hatted bunch given to lofty rhetoric about culture and progress, gave it short shrift in the promotional literature. In fact, the official fair guide, 212 pages long, spent all of two pages depicting the Pike. Too bad, as it was a fascinating and vast time capsule of America in that age. 

What other single place could claim to stage any, let alone all of the following:

Creation – A boat ride through time took the passenger to a cavern with disembodied spirits, through Rome and Venice in the First Century, and into a 400 seat ampitheater where art, lights, volcanos and wind reenacted each biblical day of creation. A second boat excursion to a giant blue dome treated the viewer to forests, animals including dinosaurs, Adam, and the miraculous transformation of Adam’s rib to Eve. This became a scene of angels on a giant flowery stairway to Heaven. The full attraction took two hours to play out. 

There were a lot of similar rides, with huge global distances represented by art filled canvases passing by a viewer through portholes or windows. In this way, one could take a real Pullman car trip on the great Siberian Railway, virtually bumping along the Russian countryside to a village with forty dancers, singers, an orchestra and a large wedding ceremony. This reenacted scenes from the recent Boxer Rebellion as well. You could also, in another venue, witness a1900 hurricane and resultant Galveston Flood. This terrible event that took 6,000 lives, and was still in the public consciousness. 

Meet me at the fair, or in the hereafter

Another faux journey was offered in an attraction called Here After, in which fairgoers entered through a long gallery of mirrors to a Cafe of the Dead, where they dined on coffins as tables, served by widows and undertakers. One of the party then morphed into a skeleton and guided the others into a simulated elevator leading down to Hades. There, Satan appeared through billowing smoke to threaten the innocent bystanders, accompanied by the screams and moans of the undead.

A float down the river Acheron beneath stalactites and dropping skeletons kept the viewer busy with short moral stories, like a bank robber who learned he couldn’t spend the loot in Hell, or woman whose nose was held in a vise as just dessert for having stuck it into other peoples’ affairs. A water slide transition then took the onlookers to Paradise, where they could see the Star of Bethlehem rise, and angels ascend in an electric burst of dawn. Everyone loves a happy ending. 

Under and Over the Sea represented a trip to Paris by submarine, where 250 attendees at once were entertained by mermaids, sea monsters, and dazzled by sunken treasures. Once in Paris, it was up an elevator in the Eiffel Tower for a look down at the city, painstakingly recreated in miniature, so the perspective seemed real. The return to St. Louis was by dirigible airship, Passengers looked out 5 x 7 foot portholes as Brest Harbor, Brussels, Berlin and London passed by. On sighting Eads Bridge, the room (or cabin) shuddered, to suggest a firm but safe landing home. 

A final long simulated ride was one from New York to the North Pole by a 200 foot long ocean liner built for the fair. This attraction accommodated 500 viewers at a time, Moving the entire room while moving the scenery, combined with icy blasts of air and water gave the illusion (and disorientation) of a voyage at sea, while visitors could walk through the series of chambers, drawing and smoking rooms. A storm brought out a call to lower the lifeboats, and everyone evacuated until the all clear was signaled. Eventually, all transferred to sleds for a final push to the Pole. There, a surprise awaited – the Pole was a tropical wonderland locked in the ice, under a splendid recreation of the Northern Lights. 

Doing the hootchy koo with a princess

Large recreations of “Mysterious Asia,” featured street scenes from Ceylon, India, Burma and Persia. Exotic dancers like Little Egypt, Princess Rajah, and La Belle Rose performed the “Hootchy Kootchy” and belly danced to the lightly scandalized delight of observers.

Step right up to witness Princess Rajah as she dances for you!

Come to St. Louis and see the world

Some of the foreign land exhibits were extremely popular. There was a large Irish village with Blarney Castle and Parliament House. Organizers shipped all the soil and sod for this exhibit directly from Ireland. You could also enjoy the streets of Cairo (26 buildings and 67 booths), ancient Rome, Seville, and Paris. There was a large Japanese area with 40 Geisha girls serving tea; you could browse the bazaars of Constantinople, stroll a Chinese village, or an Eskimo one, witness Colorado Indian cliff-dwellers in their 60 foot tall staff cliffs or the workings of an old ante-bellum plantation. 

All of this and the Tyrolean Alps holding down the eastern end of the Pike for good measure. This installation was a nine-acre tribute to the German heritage in St. Louis. One could ride a tram to the top of fake mountains covered in fake snow, to look out over the 21 buildings and vast beer garden below. Famed St. Louis restauranteur Tony Faust ran the Tyrolean restaurant, and could accommodate 2,500 diners at a time.

Oh, there was much more; Hagenbeck’s Zoo with exotic animal shows given to audiences of 2,500, a wax museum, displays of fire fighting, bull fighting and the human fighting at Yorktown, Gettysburg and Little Big Horn. There was a cross between a train and a roller coaster, the Thompson Scenic Railway, taking visitors over a three mile course in several minutes. The management stressed and assured complete safety, as the ride was faster than almost any attendee had ever gone. 

Showing off new colonial possessions

The largest exhibit of the fair, fully 47 acres, concerned the Philippines. It became an American territory three years earlier, as a result of the Spanish-American War. Curiosity and fascination with America’s first far Eastern holding resulted in the most popular attraction of the Fair. It might have been the single shot taken at establishing an overseas American empire. Empire was an outdated concept by the end of the first World War, 14 short years later. 

I mention the lack of promotion given the Pike by the official Fair guide. It’s not easy to find detailed accounts. If you consulted “The St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904, in Commemoration of the Acquisition of the Louisiana Territory” published by Gottschalk Printing of St. Louis, you wouldn’t have suspected the presence of a Pike. 

 

Thanks to research sources:

A primary source for this essay is at the University of Missouri Digital Library. “The True and Complete Story of the Pike and its Attractions, World’s Fair, St Louis, USA, is at https://dl.mospace.umsystem.edu/mu/islandora/object/mu%3A334729#page/1/mode/2up

The photo of the Pike is from the Atlantic, September 9, 2019 – a terrific collection of high quality images and short descriptions of the fair. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/09/the-1904-st-louis-worlds-fair-photos/597658/

A surprisingly detailed description of the events surrounding the Battle of Santiago are on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Santiago_de_Cuba

Photo of battle from The Library of Congress – http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b11161/

Baby Incubators essay at https://atthefair.homestead.com/pkeatt/Babyincubators.html. It’s part of a great collection related to the Pike attractions at https://atthefair.homestead.com/Pike.html

Incubator story at St Louis Post-Dispatch of October 19,2019; Aisha Sultan

Photo of Incubator exhibit from http://www.neonatology.org/pinups/stlouis.html

General DeWet’s escape photo from the Chapman Digital Commons at https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/jonathan_silent_film/603/

The official Boer War program is from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/799670477562047470/

A terrific piece about the Philippines exhibit from a Filipino perspective is at Positively Filipino: http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/2013/6/little-brown-brothers-st-louis-blues-the-philippine-exposition-1904-st-louis-worlds-fair

Thanks to Docs Midway Cookhouse at https://www.docsmidwaycookhouse.com/carnival-history/ for some carnival history and statistics from the early 1900’s.