1904 WAS A SPECTACULAR YEAR FOR ST. LOUIS

 

First, my view from where I am sitting, cranking out this posting.  And, before I get into the "Rome of the West," St. Louis, let me first share some rather unsettling news for Democrats from the morning New York Times.  In short, with all the problems faced by Donald Trump, he is still leading Joe Biden to become our next president, two days away from their first debate.

However, the Yale School of Management released this rather startling bit of news.  None...ZERO....of the Fortune 100 CEOs, a group that historically leans Republican, has in this current election cycle donated to Donald Trump.

Why such a low level of support?  They are certainly not the MAGA-type.  They can tolerate Biden, but fear Trump.    Yet, zero for 100?  Amazing.  Kind of reminds me as to how all 12 jurors in Trump's hush money trial voted him guilty, 34 times.

And a final aside.  What is the dumbest statement ever made by Donald Trump.  It was not this statement to the left.

So back to the topic of the day, 1900 was a golden year for Paris. 

• It hosted both the Summer Olympics and the World's Fair.  
• But this was nothing new, for Paris also was home for the 1855, 1867, 1878 and 1889 World Expos (the terms are interchangeable), the 1937 World's Fair and 1847 Special Expo.

I wasn't around then, but my check of the available information was that St. Louis might have been an important U.S. city in the late 1800's, but was rather isolated and difficult to reach.  There was absolutely no international reputation.  How then did St. Louis in 1904....:

• ....host  both the Summer Olympics and World's Fair?
• The city never again was home to any of them.
• St. Louis, appropriately enough relative to Paris, with its world-wide eminence and site of the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics, honors Louis IX, patron saint of France.

How the heck did St. Louis pull this off 120 years ago?

• The first World's Fair or Universal Exhibition or Exposition or Expo occurred in Prague in 1791 for the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia.

• 
  European cities then held similar expositions.
• However, the "official Expos" start with:
• London in 1851 with 25 countries and 6 million visitors.
• Paris hosted #2 in 1855 with 28 nations.
• London held the 1862 version with 39 countries.
• Paris was #4 in 1867 with 42 nations and 15 million visitors.

• 
  #6 was the first American city, Philadelphia in 1876 (centennial of our founding), with 35 countries and 10 million visitors.
• #7 was Paris again in 1878 with 35 nations and 16 million visitors.
• #10 Paris in 1889 with 35 countries and 32.3 million visitors.
• #13 Paris in 1900 with 40 nations and 51 million visitors.
• #14 St. Louis with 50 countries and 19.7 million visitors.  Note the significant drop in people.

So to commemorate the centennial of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, St. Louis decided to hold an exposition, and sold the selection committee to join them.

• Clearly a lot of politics, for they secured $15 million (worth more than half a billion today) of federal financing.  

• 
  A key individual was former St. Louis mayor, Governor of Missouri, Secretary of Interior until 1897 and president of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, David R. Francis.  That's him pushing the button to open the Fair.
• Enticed 50 countries, 43 of then-45 American states and many companies to come.  There was a delay to 1904 to accommodate these participants.

• 
  Meanwhile, Chicago was selected as host for the 1904 Summer Olympics.
• But a lot more politicizing and interference intruded to bring those games to St. Louis.
• So these 1904 Summer Olympic games became part of the St. Louis Expo, and extended for 5 months to spread through the 8-month long Fair.

• 
  In 1910 Francis was arrested for non-payment of taxes, but was released on bail.

• 
  He became the last U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Empire between 1916 and 1917, escaping an assassination attempt, and serving this post during the February and October Revolution of 1917, that eventually brought Vladimir Lenin to power.

• 
  Reads like a good movie script when you bring in the Expo and Olympics.

David R. Francis was a brash, opinionated, stubborn, smart, sometimes foolish, straight-talking, quick-acting, independent-minded, proud, self-made man who represented the United States in Russia for two and a half years, during the most tumultuous era in that country's history. Much of his activity has been shrouded in myth – some of that heroic, more of that comic and tragic.^[12]

The 1904 World's Fair 

• Generally went well, with nearly 20 million visitors.
• There were 1500 buildings connected by 75 miles of roads and walkways.
• No way to see all in less than a week.
• Admission ranged from 25 cents, up.
• Some highlights.
• Electricity was new, and Edison came.  Electric street railcars were featured.

• 
  The Wright Brothers had just flown in 1903, and the Fair hosted an Airship Contest with a prize of $100,000 (worth $3.4 million today).  There were some requirements, and no one won.

• 
  140 models of the personal automobile were shown.  Ford later in 1908 developed the Model T.
• There was wireless telephony, which became radio and telephone.

• 
  The telautograph was shown, the precurser to a fax machine.
• Ultraviolet light was used to treat a form of lupus.
• Showed the just invented X-ray machine.

• 
  Various foods were made popular, but not really invented at the Fair.
• Ice cream cone.
• Hamburger.
• Hot dog.
• Peanut butter.
• Iced tea.
• Peanut butter.
• Cotton candy.
• Dr. Pepper and Puffed Wheat cereal were, however, introduced here.
• 
  Scott Joplin wrote Cascades in honor of the Festival Hall waterfalls.
• The only surviving pavilion today was from Sweden, but is in Lindsborg, Kansas.
• Helen Keller, who was 24, and came from Radcliffe to give a lecture.

• 
  Geronimo was "on display."
• Henri Poincaré gave a keynote addres on mathematical physics.
• Poet T.S. Eliot, from St. Louis, visited the Igorot Village in the Philippine Exposition.

• 
  Jack Daniel entered his Tennessee whiskey, and won the Gold Medal for the finest in the world.
• The Sundance Kid visited without Butch.  They were killed in 1908.
• A low light, but major attraction, was Anthropology Days.
• Paris had something called human zoos, showing "savages" from developing countries.
• St. Louis made this attraction prominent.

• 
  3000 indigenous people from throughout the world were brought to St. Louis, showing them in their natural habitat, and also in various modern scenes.
• This attitude was normal in those days, but not today.

The 1904 St. Louis Summer Olympics were, however, a disappointment.

• First, they literally stole them from Chicago.
• Only 12 countries bothered to show up.
• Americans accounted for 523 of the 630 athletes, and won more than half the events.
• We won 231 medals, the largest haul ever in a single Olympics.  Germany was #2 with 15.
• One American, gymnast George Eyser, won six medals, even though his left leg was made of wood.

• 
  Another American, Frank Kugler won four medals, in wrestling, weightlifting and tug of war, the only one till today who has done anything like that.

• 
  Dragged on for five months.
• Sprinkled throughout the run of the World's Fair, so there was confusion as to what was what.
• Boxing made a debut.
• The marathon, for example:
• Was held in 90-degree weather on a dust-covered road, so that 18 of the 32 competitors withdrew from exhaustion.  
• Len Tau was chased off the course by a pack of wild dogs.
• One almost died. 
• Winner Thomas Hicks was in utter agony, and was fed doses of toxic strychnine and some brandy, plus had to carried over the finish line with a time of 3 hours, 28 minutes and 53 seconds.

• 
  However, the current three-medal format of gold, silver and bronze was first introduced here.
• Out of nearly 100 sports, women were only allowed to compete in archery.
• Women also stepped into the ring on the boxing card as a display event.
• Did not go well, for the next time women were allowed into the Olympics ring was 108 years later in the 2012 London Games.

The story of St. Louis itself is today sad, with hope for the future.

• 
  In 1904 St. Louis had a population of around 600,000, and was the 4th largest city in the USA.  
• Today it is ranked 69th, with less than 300,000 people.
• Local heroes include Lewis and Clark, Mark Twain, Stan Musial and Budweiser.

• 
  But the city has definitely decayed, and now enjoys the shortest commute time in the nation
• It was once best known as Mound City....certainly not Rome of the West....as early explorers saw numerous Indian mounds.
• Today, I can appreciate their latest nickname, Gateway to the West, for the  city is symbolized by the Gateway Arch.

• 
  In 2023 WalletHub named St. Louis as the least safe city in the country.
• Here is an interesting graphic as to how dangerous a city must be.  All these #1 cities spend 7 times more/capita than the California city of Chula Vista.

• 
  St. Louis suffered the cruel fate of losing their NFL Rams to Los Angeles in 2016, and got mentioned as a potential competitor to Amazon establishing a second headquarters following Seattle.  Lost out to Arlington County, Virginia and Long Island City in Queens, New York.  Yes, selected two for HQ2.
• But has a 630-foot tall Arch.
• If crime can be controlled, here is what can be the future of St. Louis:

St. Louis is a value city overall. Think of it as a three-for-one. Here you get everything you’d expect in a much larger city, but with the low-stress cordialities of living in a smaller one. Light traffic, affordable housing, and a general manageability of scale. But packaged together in a place of intrinsic historic value of cultural import whose existence has been pivotal to the trajectory of our nation.

Is St. Louis in fact America’s greatest city? Perhaps not anymore. But walk through its Arch and discover a great forgotten place. It packs both history and promise, and, as Lewis and Clark established well over two centuries ago, it’s an affordable gateway for chasing the American adventure.

Forty years later after the Expo, Meet Me in St. Louis, was released, starring Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien and many others, with the song of that title.  The film was all about the 1904 World's Fair.

Finally, actual videos from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.  You might want to quickly fast-forward through the first 13.5 minutes.  Some incredible photos from The Atlantic.  There are many more than the following.

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