The Missouri History Museum

Today I went to the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis. With a rainy drab day like today, it was a good day to walk through the museum.

To my surprise there was an exhibit for the 1904 World's Fair. I have always been interested in this subject. When I was a little girl growing up in St. Louis my grandmother who was born in 1893 still talked about how wonderful the fair had been.

The subject for my final essay is immigration in St. Louis in the early 1900s. While I was at the museum I found some good sources of information for my essay.

The picture I have posted is of workers who were living in an old streetcar on the fairgrounds in 1902. A plaque at the museum said that more than 10,000 workers had been employed by the Louisiana Exposition Company to transform Forest Park from a rough wilderness into the largest world's fair in history.

As I looked at the paintings and photos of how grand the fair was, I am still amazed that most of the buildings and exhibits were torn down in the years that followed. I've read that the track for the roller coaster was 3 miles long. The Observation Wheel (Ferris Wheel) was 264 feet high. Each car held 36 passengers. It took 20 minutes to go around 1 time. There were weddings and banquets on board. On May 11, 1906 the Observation Wheel was dynamited and sold for scrap. I think that was a huge waste. They should have left it up.

It was a nice day at the museum. I got a lot of good information for my essay.