Mike's 1904 St. Louis World's Fair
Web Pages


1904 W.F. Society

WELCOME to my 1904 World's Fair pages, designed to provide information and promote interest about
the "World's Greatest Fair", the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, held in St. Louis in 1904.

I've just updated MANY pages (October 2009), and I've also added a LOT of LINKS to many
websites that contain neat information about the 1904 World's Fair.
 Check out my Updated Links Page!

With my LINKS (to many websites) and information about BOOKS (old, new, and ON-LINE),
I'm trying to provide a "Central" website for 1904 World's Fair information, websites, and resources.

Many World's Fairs were held in Europe and America from 1851 to 1915 (during the Victorian era).
They provided an opportunity to exchange ideas and information,
to see the latest advances in arts, sciences, inventions, and agriculture,
and they helped propel the world into the Industrial Revolution and the 20th Century.

In these pages are an overview of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, buildings, facts, and trivia. There's several pages about the Pike and its attractions, myths and legends, memorabilia, current and vintage World's Fair books,
links to other websites, and several calendars about events at "The Greatest of Expositions".

The PAGE LINKS and descriptions are below, and the links are also at the left. 
My major reference books and information about Life in 1904 are at the bottom.

The 1904 World's Fair Society homepage can be found from any page using the 1904 W. F. Society logo (top right).

New  The most-asked question about the 1904 World's Fair is "What happened to all those magnificent buildings?", or in another way, "Why did they tear it all down?" 

  -->   Well, in early 1902, time was tight to build these giant exhibit halls (called Palaces).  The 1904 World's Fair managers (the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company) decided to follow the lead of other World's Fairs.  They designed and built most of the large buildings to be temporary structures.  By agreement with the city of St. Louis, one large building would be built to be permanent:  the Palace of Art (see picture below) is now the St. Louis Art Museum.  The temporary buildings were built on a framework of wood, and covered with a material called staff, which was formed into columns, statuary, walls, stairs, etc.  It could be easily repaired and patched (and often was).  After the Fair, the Fair's buildings were demolished, and all items and materials that could be salvaged and sold were "recycled" by the salvage company, the Chicago Home Wrecking Company.

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION:

  • Updated  An Overview of the 1904 World's Fair

  • Facts and Trivia about the 1904 World's Fair

  • Many NEW  Links to 1904 World's Fair web sites and pages  (Updated in Sep 2009) 

BUILDINGS:

THE PIKE - Attractions and Concessions:

Overview of the Pike
   U.S. Attractions
    Foreign Culture Attractions
   Rides
    Other Notable Concessions

A Visit to "The Pike"

MYTHS & LEGENDS:

MEMORABILIA & SOUVENIRS:

VIDEOS:

BOOKS:

CALENDARS:

NOTE: About the 1904 monthly calendars:
    April 30 was a Saturday, and the Fair was closed on Sunday, May 1, 1904
    In different years, April 30 will be on different days.
    In 2004, April 30 was a Friday, and May 1 is a Saturday.

NOTE: If you desire to print the monthly calendars, use landscape mode if your browser permits.
If it does not, you can save the file as a .htm file (using "File-Save"), then open the file in Word, edit as necessary (save as a Word .doc file, adjust margins, delete extra line returns, etc.), and then print the page in landscape mode.

At the beginning of the 20th Century:

  • The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47; 95% of all births took place at home.
  • Only 14% of U.S. homes had a bathtub; only 8% had a telephone.
  • Only 6% of all Americans had graduated from high school; 90% of U.S. physicians had no college education.
  • The maximum speed limit for the 10,000 cars in the U.S. was 10 mph.
  • The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower, built for the Worlds Fair in Paris in 1888.
  • The average U.S. salary was 22 cents an hour; the average annual salary was $200-400 per year.
  • Eggs were 14 cents a dozen, and coffee was 15 cents a pound.

References: The following primary references were used to create these pages, in addition to various 1904 WF websites.
Also, several other contemporary and vintage books, and also other listed web pages were used for additional reference.

  1. Mark Bennitt, The History of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, © 1905.
  2. David R. Francis, The Universal Exposition of 1904, © 1913.
  3. World's Fair Bulletins, published monthly by the World's Fair Publishing Co., 1901-1904.
  4. Special Thanks to Joe Sonderman, author of St. Louis World's Fair 365: An Intriguing Day-By-Day Look at the 1904 World's Fair, for use of his information in the 1904 Calendars.
  5. World's Fair Daily Programs, published daily by the World's Fair Publishing Co., 1904.
  6. Various 1904 World's Fair souvenir booklets.

Finally, another Special Thanks to thank Yvonne Suess for the use of her edited/colorized photograph of Festival Hall.