City - Chicago, IL - The city of wonder 1893 Tie

Colourized photo from 1893 Original title: Looking West from Peristyle Photographer: Unknown Location: 6322 South Lake Shore Dr, Chicago, IL This is the NJ view of this statue, if you are from NJ, then you will understand this joke. For everyone else, we see the back of the Statue of Liberty, her front faces NY. Anyway, this is the Columbian Exposition of 1893, called the City of Wonder, or White city, as all the buildings were alabaster in colour, using a new form of spray paint. The great basin was man made, it stretched over a 1000 ft long, and was wide enough to allow people to use boats to get to the other side, instead of walking there. They even held Roman style battles in this as entertainment. The statue, was called "The Republic", though she was also known as "Big Mary". She stood 60ft tall, 100ft including the base, and was one of the largest statues in the country at its time, the Statue of Liberty is taller. The large domed building in the background was the Administration building, mostly it was offices and a lot of glitz. On the other side, there was a train station that let people off here, this was considered the front door. It was the first impression as you walked in. On the left, the building with the spires was the machinery building, probably the most interesting building there. They held all sorts of demonstrations and gave you the coolest things to take home. One exhibit received long distance calls from NY and other places around the country. They would record those messages on a phonograph so others can hear it later on. They then took those messages and brought it to a Linotype machine, where people would type it out and send it to the newspaper department. From there they would take wood, grind it into pulp, make paper, and print those messages on a newspaper like pamphlet that people then took home, it all took 63 minutes. Around the the building you would hear bells ringing, people singing and music playing. A giant steam pump would pump out lemon aid for guests to take a glass of. There were vendors there, they would demonstrate making things such as hair brushes, little bricks, etc, then give those items away as fun bulky gifts. Can you imagine carrying a brick or a small band saw around? Those were also giveaways. They also made horse shoes from raw ore. A giant loom made large sheets of cotton, and spun silk into fine sheets. They saw a machine that could create 10,000 button holes an hour (and as you probably know, that is quite a feat). Another machine bored 12,000 holes in wood in an hour. They also had a machine that could wash and wipe dishes. There were machines outside that made wood shingles in an instant, along with large tensile testers that crushed stuff to dust. On the right, in the rear, the building you can't see but looks just like the one you can, is the Mine and Mining building. It contained mine stuff mostly. But the building itself was 700ft long x 350ft wide. It covered over 5 1/2 acres. The roof expanse was mostly glass, but due to its design, was wide open using only two supports on the sides. The roof relied on cantilever trusses and using this method actually enhanced roof's of today. The building you can see on the right, with those small domes on it, was the Electricity building. GE (backed by Jp Morgan and Thomas Edison). Inside there was a large pillar of light bulbs and pretty glass lamp shades from Edison, Tesla had a weird copper egg that spun without touching anything using magnetic induction, and there were scores of other interesting electric appliances displayed. The main reason why everything was painted white was because they wanted to show off electric lights, something brand new, as most people used candles or gas jets in their homes. Large mansions may have electric lights, they ran on DC, which you needed a generator for, which was placed in the basement. That had to be fed all day, and often the curtains would catch fire due to the open wiring. There were two bids to light the entire fair, one from GE/Thomas Edison and Westinghouse/Tesla. Edison wanted $1.8 millon dollars (about $55 million today). In which they got a big fat no, actually I'm guessing there was laughter and a slam of a door. So they made a few calculations and came up with a new figure of $554,000 ($16 million today). Which was better but not as good as the Westinghouse team which low balled them at $399,000 ($12 million today). But Edison being a jerk, said, you can't use my bulbs, good luck sucka, that was a direct quote by the way, I swear. However it didn't matter, the team came up with a brand new bulb design called the "double stopper". It wasn't even Tesla's design, it came from Reginald Fessenden, who later was the first person to transmit voice of radio. The bulb was a much better design than Edison's. Edison's bulb used expensive platinum filaments, but this new stopper bulb used an alloy of nickel and iron. It lasted longer and was cheaper to make. Tesla on the other hand created a high-frequency high-voltage lighting that produced more efficient light with much less heat. It was also mentioned that stopper bulbs was used on the Ferris Wheel, and one burned out. The maintenance guy handed that burned out bulb to a six year old named, Douglas Perham. He was told to hold it as it will have historical significance some day. That was the first item to his collection where he eventually opened a museum around electrical items. Today this location has nothing left but a big open space where boats live. On the right, roughly where that gazebo is, is the recreated gold statue 1/4 its original size. Behind us is the lake.