Chicago Tribune Supplements, July, 1893
Watercolors by Charles S. Graham (1852-1911)
Official artist of the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition.
Yerkes Telescope
Official Birdseye View Columbian Exposition, Chicago
Montana Exhibit
The lobby of the Montana building was twenty-two-feet square, and supported a glass dome which was thirty-eight feet high. Under this dome, on eight panels of pine, were recorded the principal historical events in the records of the people of Montana. A gallery displayed exhibits that had been displayed in the State’s pavilions elsewhere on the grounds. Here, the painters of the commonwealth and other Western States displayed their art along with mineral showings appropriate for Montana.
Whether the Silver Statue was located in the Montana building is uncertain. Another statue, the Silver Queen, representing a mining company at Aspen, Colorado was housed in the western gallery of the Mines and Mining Building. It consisted of pedestals on which infantile figures in solid silver poured cornucopias of silver dollars out on the world. and held the lines of a boat with chariot wheels, in which , under a canopy, with staff of office in hand, sat the Silver Queen, with crown of gold. Above her head was a richly made canopy, and on its summit rested an eagle with wings spread. It was considered to be, at the least, as beautiful as the Montana statue.
Cairo Street
The two grand feature of the Street in Cairo was the Wedding Procession and camel rides.
In the Wedding Procession, gaily caparisoned camels, lead by donkey boys. The first carried a half-stripped Egyptian, who danced with his shoulder after the Asiatic, African and Muscovite manner; behind the tom-tom beaters came the camels with great howdahs, holding the bride; after them the hollow square of celebrants, the Bull Apis, and the oots, drums and priests of Luxor.
Between the Wedding Processions, when the ships of the desert could be spared, lads and lasses would go into convulsions of merriment as they mounted and then successfully rose on the altitudinous camel.
Old Vienna
Old Vienna represented a recreation of all that was beautiful and sacred in the Bride of the Adriatic: the music of the oars, the white shining arches of the palaces, the columns of St. Mark, the gondoliers, the blue sky and glistening waters. At least forty little shops occupied Old Vienna. A restaurateur set his tables in the open air, and soon all of Chicago was talking of Old Vienna. Here it became a fashion among fashionable young Americans, and a pleasure for old-country people, to pay twenty-five cents admission in order to pay ten cents for a glass of beer and listen to the excellent music and the compliments of the Viennese waitresses.
Moonlight on the Lagoons
The Fisheries Building, erected by Henry Ives Cobb, architect, of Chicago, was admired by many. It’s East Pavilion housed one of the chief attractions of the Exposition – a double row of grottoed and illuminated acquaria. Here the strangest inhabitants of the deep were conveniently viewed: the King Crab, the Burr-fish, Flounders, Toad-fish, Anemones, Eels, Sturgeon, Cat-fish, Sharks, Bill-fish, Gold-fish, Blue-fish, Rays, Trout and many others. Nearly six hundred feet of glass front were shown in the acquaria, with three thousand square feet of surface water. The area was over three acres and cost $225,000. The columns and arches were carved with tortoises, serpents, calamus, fish and frogs.
Among the State Buildings
Interior of Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building
Agricultural Building
Interior of Electrical Building
Looking East in the Grand Court.
Looking South from Wooded Island.
Along the Plaisance
At Night in the Grand Court
Midway Character Types
Ols Liberty Bell
Scenes in the Irish Village
The Caravels and La Rabida.
View From Ferris Wheel
The Gilded Entrance to the Transportation Building.
The Viking
Art Palace at Night
Fete Night at Wooded Island
Casino and Pier
Chicago Tribune Supplement, Chicago Day, October 9, 1893
STORY OF THE OGDEN HOUSE.
As the sole Survivor on the North Side It Will Always Be Famous.
A faithful illustration is given in today’s issue of The Chicago Tribune of the must interesting relic of the great fire, the old Ogden mansion, which stood alone of so many thousand buildings survived the great catastrophe. The building was the home of Mahlon D. Ogden, and stood in the center of a square. There was a frame barn to the north. which alone remains today, the last relic of the fire. The site of the mansion is now occupied by the magnificent new Newberry Library Building.
The escape of the Ogden building from destruction constitutes one of the many miracles of the fire. On the night of the conflagration the family were away, but a few visitors fought the fire with such means as were at their command, using blankets and carpets saturated with water and pouring buckets of water on the roof. In front of the house and between it and the fast-approaching flames was Washington square, one vacant block. To the north and on the sides city houses Were burning. Running out of water the courageous defenders of the historic homestead used several barrels of cider to saturate the carpets. The sidewalk burned up, the trees in the park followed, and a house in the rear of the mansion broke into a sheet of flame. A dozen times the surrounding wooden fences were ignited. Each time the flames were extinguished by the prompt application of water or cider.
The blaze passed away to the north, to spend its fading force in Lincoln Park, and when the morning dawned on such a scene of ruin and desolation as the world had never before beheld the grand old structure stood in all its strength and beauty intact and unharmed.
For many miles north and south extended a bare and blackened prairie. In the North Division not a house save the Ogden homestead was left. For many years the old building stood in its lonely grandeur. the one distinctive mark of the greatest conflagration of all time. But in Chicago all things change, and when it was decided to utilize the munificent bequest of Mr. Newberry by the construction of a splendid library building the old house was doomed.
It was the Mecca of countless pilgrims from home and abroad, but it exists no longer. The barn still stands, and long may it remain; a mute witness to the grandest scene of destruction and a silent observer of the most gigantic renaissance of a city that the world has ever known. Every Chicagoan knows the story of the Ogden mansion and has visited it and gazed with wonder on the old frame house. The hundreds of thousands of visitors within our gates will be equally attracted by the fine old relic, and, it is safe to say, will not neglect the opportunity to view Chicago’s last relic of the great fire, from which the city has sprung into new life and vaster influence. To such as cannot avail themselves of the opportunity to personally view the scene the fine colored sketch given in this issue will furnish a clear idea of the old building and will serve as an object lesson with which to illustrate the story of the great Chicago fire.
(Painting by Charles Graham)
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