Mainer’s glimpse at world’s fair sights

Meet me in St. Louis, Louis, meet me at the fair.”

Adventuresome Mainers with extra time and money were humming that tune in 1904, long before Judy Garland sang it, as they planned their trips to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the official name of the largest world’s fair ever.

Some wanted a glimpse of the modern technology that would shape the coming century – the automobiles, the X-ray machine, the electric bulbs – on display in the Palace of Electricity and the Palace of Machinery and assorted other palaces. Others wanted to see the 11-acre Jerusalem or the 47-acres of villages populated by 1,100 Filipinos.

Some wanted to hike in the Tyrolean Alps or walk the streets of Cairo, both situated with other exotic simulations on the Pike, the fair’s midway. Some came to see the first Olympics held on U.S. soil, a pale version of today’s athletic extravaganza. A few undoubtedly just wanted to try out new dishes, such as hot dogs and ice cream cones, invented by food vendors.

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Blanding of Bangor packed their bags and got on the Maine Central Railroad early on the afternoon of Friday, June 3 and headed for Portland, where at 7 p.m. they picked up the Grand Trunk Railway to Chicago via Montreal.

As editor of the Industrial Journal and secretary of the Bangor Board of Trade, E. M. Blanding was in a unique position to tell Mainers what was going on at this “coronation of civilization” in the nation’s fourth largest city. He could tell them about all the technological wonders and foreign exotica, but as one of eastern Maine’s biggest boosters, he was more concerned about the impression Down Easters were making on the world at the dawn of the 20th century.

There were Maine-connected people to see along the way. On Sunday in Chicago, for example, the Blandings visited the Field Columbian Museum, where Professor Oliver C. Farrington, a University of Maine graduate, was the geologist.

Leaving the Windy City that evening on the Chicago & Alton Railroad, the Blandings journeyed south along the Mississippi, crossing at East St. Louis. Monday morning, they rolled into St. Louis’ Union Station, the largest train station in the world at the time.

They checked into the Hotel Plaza for two days before moving to the home of another Maine connection, H. G. Coburn, Jr., whose father had run a hotel in Lincoln and whose brother Frank, a man “widely known in Maine hotel circles,” was now a St. Louis hotel proprietor.

Blanding had been to many world’s fairs, ranging from the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876 to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo just three years before, but the St. Louis fair with its 1,200 acres and 900 buildings, some with as many as 128 acres under one roof, outstripped them all. The fair’s Intramural Railway took 40 minutes to circumnavigate the site on its seven-mile run.

Indeed, one might well be “appalled at the vast magnitude of this crowning achievement of the twentieth century,” he ventured. Today the comment sounds oddly critical and presumptuous at the same time, as if the writer could somehow sense the abyss of excess the century would bring, yet had no inkling of the technological wonders to come.

In this disquietingly turbulent atmosphere, the State of Maine building, a vast log sportsmen’s lodge nearly as long as a football field, provided a sea of calm (see my June 14th column for details about this noteworthy building designed by John Calvin Stevens).

It “attracts much attention because of the uniqueness of its design and it is visited daily by large numbers,” wrote Blanding, never acknowledging the controversy that had surrounded its conception, but never actually praising its rustic charms either. Diplomatically he wrote that it was the coolest structure in the Plateau of States for anyone seeking to escape the oppressive Missouri heat.

Inside were large oil paintings of Gov. John F. Hill, former Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the state’s first governor, William King. There was a large array of scenic views of Maine, “the Poland Spring House and the Samoset at Rockland Breakwater being prominent.” There were large tinted views along the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad “and also some very striking views of Aroostook potatoes.” The Bangor taxidermy establishment of S. L. Crosby displayed a collection of fish, birds and game.

Goods made by the Goodall mill of Sanford and the Haskell Silk Company of Westbrook were on display, as were numerous samples of granite from the quarries of Hancock, Knox and Washington counties. Burnham & Morrill had a show of its canned goods.

But it was with a hint of concern that Blanding noted Maine’s presence outside its building “is not extensive.” Alas, Maine’s role at the fair does not appear to have been particularly exciting, and even then, 100 years ago, the state was relying primarily on its rustic scenery and natural resources rather than on the inventiveness and productivity of its people to attract the world’s attention.

In the Manufacturer’s Building, the Sanford mills had another display (Louis B. Goodall was chairman of the Maine commissioners to the exposition). In the Mining Building, Poland Spring mineral water was featured. More Aroostook potatoes were in the Agricultural Building, while apples could be seen in the Horticultural Building. In the Fish and Game Building, S. W. and W. L. Steward of Monmouth were selling paintings of fish, hand-painted paddles and other woods souvenirs emphasizing the state’s attractiveness to sportsmen.

Blanding also noted that Maine made a small artistic contribution at the fair as well. The female figure of Iowa in the Colonnade of States and the figure representing Renaissance Art over the Palace of Fine Arts had been sculpted by Carl Tefft, son of Dr. H. F. Tefft of Brewer. Visitors to downtown Bangor today will know him as the sculptor of the Peirce Memorial, the monument to river drivers next to the Bangor Public Library.

Finally, the Industrial Journal’s editor noted that Winfield Scott Chaplin, a Bangor native and a former professor at the University of Maine, was the chancellor of Washington University, which would be moving into some of the fair’s administrative buildings at its conclusion.

Mr. and Mrs. Blanding were back in Bangor at 3 p.m., June 18. The account of their trip was in that month’s issue of the Industrial Journal. Businessmen could read it and decide whether their state’s image made the grade and whether they wished to make the journey in the fall when it would be cooler. The fair ran from April 30 to Dec. 1.

Blanding’s account was written in the dry measured style one associates with a business prospectus. He never tells us whether he heard Scott Joplin play a rag or whether he saw Will Rogers twirl his lariat. He never tells us whether he tried iced tea or an ice cream cone, novelties popularized at the fair, or whether he rode the giant wheel designed by George Ferris. He never tells us whether he sneaked off long enough to take a peek at Little Egypt doing the hoochie-coochie at the Mysterious Asia attraction.

He never lets on if he had any fun!

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.