Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission Part 54

_Members of commission_.--Jefferson Myers, president; W.E. Thomas, vice-president; Edmond C. Giltner, secretary; W.H. Wehrung, special commissioner and general superintendent; F.A. Spencer, David Rafferty, J.C. Flanders, G.Y. Harry, J.H. Albert, Richard Scott, Frank Williams, F.G. Young, George Conser; Layton Wisdom, private secretary to general superintendent.

The legislature of the State of Oregon made an appropriation of $50,000 for the partic.i.p.ation of Oregon at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

One of the main objects was to excite interest in the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition to be held at Portland, Oreg., in 1905.

The Oregon State Building was built of logs and was a reproduction of Fort Clatsop, the fort in which Lewis and Clark and their companions resided during their stay in Oregon in the winter of 1805-6. Two square wings stood diagonally from each front corner of the building like the old fortress abutments used in the days when it was necessary for pioneer settlers to maintain such defenses against the hostile Indians.

The cost of the erection and maintenance of the building was $9,000, of which the Lewis and Clark Exposition Company contributed $3,500.

Not including the exhibits in the Oregon Building, the State made exhibits in six exhibit palaces, as follows: Agricultural Pavilion, Horticultural Pavilion, Educational Pavilion, Forestry Pavilion, Mining Pavilion, and Fish and Game Pavilion.

In the Educational Department a very interesting display was made by the State board of education and the public schools of approximately all the towns in the State.

In the Forestry, Fish, and Game Building were exhibits by large lumber corporations of the State and a very interesting display of mounted specimens of fish and game, furs and rugs, also cannery displays from the fish-canning concerns. The Oregon State experimental stations at Corvallis and Union made very interesting exhibits of grains and gra.s.ses in the Palace of Agriculture. The same cla.s.ses of products were exhibited by about 60 individual exhibitors, residents of the State of Oregon. While grains and gra.s.ses formed the largest exhibit, there were also interesting displays of wool, mohair, hops, milling stuffs, evaporated cream, and vegetables and fruit, both evaporated and in jars.

In the Horticultural Building about 50 exhibitors displayed specimens of the fruits of Oregon. Apples, pears, and prunes were shown in interesting variety and unexcelled quality.

Four exhibitors made exhibits in the Live Stock Department.

In the Mines and Metallurgy Building there was a very unique and interesting display of mineral specimens, many of which were loaned to the State of Oregon for use at the exposition. Among the specimens there were collections of gold quartz and nuggets from the various gold mines of the State. Besides the gold, there were shown collections of polished pebble, copper ores, native silver, including cobalt and antimony ores, crystals, opals, marble, jasper, asbestos, limestone, kaolin, asphaltum, and tellurium ores. There were also displayed Indian curios, ethnological, geological, and other specimens, all found in the State of Oregon. The total value of the exhibit in the Mines and Metallurgy Building was estimated at $35,000.

The cost of installing and maintaining the exhibits in the several palaces were as follows:

Agricultural Building ................. $7,117 Horticultural Building ................ 6,148 Educational Building .................. 3,800 Forestry Building ..................... 3,200 Mines and Metallurgy Building ......... 5,000 Fish and Game Building ................ 2,300

The cost of freight and transportation from Oregon to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was, approximately, $4,400. Altogether the State of Oregon expended $45,803.34 out of its appropriation up to the close of the exposition.

PENNSYLVANIA.

By a joint resolution of the legislature of Pennsylvania, on February 4, 1903, Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker appointed Lieutenant-Governor William M. Brown, president of the senate; John M. Scott, speaker of the house; Henry F. Walton, State treasurer; Frank G. Harris, auditor; Gen.

Edmund B. Hardenbergh, secretary of internal affairs, and Isaac B. Brown as members of the Pennsylvania commission. Subsequently the governor appointed the following additional members: William S. Harvey, Morris L.

Clothier, Joseph M. Gazzam, George H. Earle, Jr., Charles B. Penrose, George T. Oliver, H.H. Gilkyson, Hiram Young, James Pollock, and James McBrier. The president of the senate appointed John G. Brady, William C.

Sproul, William P. Snyder, J. Henry Cochran, Cyrus E. Woods, and the speaker of the house appointed Theodore B. Stulb, John Hamilton, William B. Kirker, William Wayne, John A.F. Hoy, Fred T. Ikeler, William H.

Ulrich, A.F. Cooper, Frank B. McClain, George J. Hartman.

The commission organized on April 24, 1903, and nominated James H.

Lambert, of Philadelphia, executive officer; Bromley Wharton, secretary of the commission and created an executive committee of nine members, with H. George J. Brennan as secretary; Thos. H. Garvin, superintendent State Building; Philip H. Johnson, architect.

The State appropriation was $300,000. The only amount raised by private subscription, which was used in the installation of State exhibits, was $15,000, contributed by the anthracite coal corporations to make a display of the process of mining and marketing anthracite coal. There were no exhibits in the Pennsylvania State Building outside of the portraits of distinguished Pennsylvanians, past and present, 42 of which were displayed, and a collection of pictures loaned by the American Art Society. Several mural paintings from the Women's School of Design, in Philadelphia, and a series of nearly 100 photographs of the monuments erected to Pennsylvania regiments on the field of Gettysburg.

The State mining exhibit represented an expenditure of $60,000.

The cost of the educational exhibit was $14,000; of the agricultural exhibit $12,000; of the fish exhibit, $10,000.

In the Department of Social Economy Pennsylvania's charitable and penal system was fully demonstrated in an exhibit which received a grand prize and which was installed at an expenditure of $2,500. In addition to this, Pennsylvania's interests were represented in every department of the exposition--in Manufactures, Liberal Arts, Varied Industries, Electricity, Transportation, and Machinery.

It was Pennsylvania-made machinery which furnished the power for the electric light of the exposition, as well as for driving the machinery and pumping the water for the Cascades.

The Pennsylvania State Building occupied a conspicuous position on elevated ground and was one of the finest and most costly in the State group. The most imposing figure was the magnificently proportioned rotunda, the roof of which was supported by a colonnade of Ionic capitaled columns, which supported an entablature of great dignity, this in turn being surmounted by a series of 12 semicircular arches or lunettes, in each of which was placed an allegorical painting, suggestive and typically ill.u.s.trative of the very important industries of the State.

The princ.i.p.al color scheme of the architectural features was ivory white, with the capitals and plinths of columns gilt, as also the vaulted soffits above the paintings and the large Guilloche moldings on ribs of the ceiling, and the other important details.

The walls above the low wainscoting were painted in a rich shade of turquoise blue, with paneled ornamental stenciled work of a very rich ecru tone.

The ceiling was finished in a rich yellow tint of a tone to harmonize with the general surroundings. The general effect produced, aside from the artistic result obtained, was Pennsylvania's State colors. The ladies' room contained some beautiful furniture, consisting of some large settees, tables, writing desks, and comfortably upholstered easy chairs. The windows were draped with red silk curtains on which were embroidered the coat of arms and other State emblems.

The men's room, across the large stair hall, was similarly treated as regards furniture and draperies, but in more masculine, taste, the furniture being covered in leather, the draperies of heavier material, and the color scheme and design throughout being more suggestive of the s.e.x.

The second floor had three large, beautifully lighted and proportioned rooms, known as "art rooms."

The various rooms throughout the building were decorated murally and otherwise in such color tones, draperies, etc., as to make one harmonious with the other. Each department, in addition to its other features, had specially designed Smyrna rugs in color and design to match.

Pennsylvania, in the allotment of s.p.a.ce for her education exhibit, received one of the most desirable plots in the Educational Building.

The booth was one of the most attractive in the building, and was in harmony with its purpose. The exhibit was almost entirely from the public schools, including work from the kindergarten, the grades, and the high school. The normal schools and the soldiers' orphans schools, which are a part of the public school system in Pennsylvania, were also well represented. The work of all the kindergartens appeared together, likewise the first grade, and so on through the grades. The high school and normal school products were arranged by subjects, the papers from one branch appearing in a cabinet. The display was made on the inside walls of the booth in leaf cabinets, base stands, and special show cases.

In portfolios and on the walls were about 3,000 photographs of school buildings, grounds, interiors with children at work and at play, manual cla.s.ses at sewing, basketry, weaving, in the shops and the gardens, plans and drawings in full of model rural school buildings; evolution of the schoolhouses, showing the first log building, its successors until the modern school structure is reached, and noted places and buildings in Pennsylvania history. The State soldiers' orphans schools had an interesting and attractive exhibit of photographs of their buildings, grounds, pupils, and shops with work going on. The industrial Indian school at Carlisle had a number of most interesting photographs showing the marvelous development in the pupils after they enter that school.

The normal schools of the State had about 300 photographs of buildings, interiors, and students.

Haverford College and Lehigh University had exhibits of photographs of the college buildings, interiors, course of study, and students. The Philadelphia School of Design for Women, the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, and the Spring Garden Inst.i.tute had most interesting exhibits showing the best handiwork in the lines for which these schools were severally noted.

In the exhibit in the Mines and Metallurgy it was designed to make an exposition of the mineral wealth of the State in the crude condition of its occurrences, and of her industrial advancement in the arts and sciences as shown by the finished product. There were aggregated in the exhibit statistical data, photographic views, transparencies and prints, relief maps, specimens of crude, partly worked, and finished material.

The central feature of the exhibit, an octagonal shaft about 30 feet in height, surmounted by an ornamental frieze, dome, and golden eagle, bore statistics relating to the most important mineral productions of the State during the year 1903. Among the relief maps reproducing mining regions one, 12 by 8 feet, covered the whole State of Pennsylvania, and showed coal measures, including the Pottsville conglomerate, oil-producing areas, and gas territory.

Among the crude materials exhibited, coal, the greatest mineral product of the State, was given preeminence. A piece of anthracite coal weighing 11 tons, said to be the largest unbroken piece of this coal ever taken from the ground, was surrounded by pyramidal gla.s.s cases in which were displayed anthracite coals of various kinds, quant.i.ties, and qualities in all the marketable sizes, from lump to culm. Adjoining this display was a working breaker ill.u.s.trating modern methods of breaking, cleaning, and a.s.sorting anthracite coal. Next to this display was probably the most perfect and comprehensive coal-mine model ever constructed. It was about 16 feet by 9 feet, and was accurately proportioned to the scale of 5 feet to 1 inch. The background of the model showed the surface plan of a large mine, including a miniature breaker near the head of the mine shaft to the breaker, small cars bearing slate and culm away from the breakers, and coal cars upon a track which ran under the breaker for convenience in loading the marketable product for shipment; also upon the left hand, the fan supplying ventilation to the mine, the carpenter shop, and the boiler room, and on the right hand, the men at work on strippings (coal lying on or near the surface) with steam shovels.

Mounted prints and transparencies showed interior and surface views of mines, and a valuable collection of coal fossils completed the State exhibit of anthracite coal.

The bituminous coal of the State of Pennsylvania was represented by twelve cross-sectional cuttings from well-known veins occurring in different parts of the State and by models and views. Pennsylvania's interest in iron mining and manufactures was represented by the crude product only.

In crude specimens, ores of manganese, zinc, copper, nickel, lead, etc., were displayed, as well as feldspar, corundum talc, asbestos, gypsum, and mica. A pavilion built of old Bangor slate showed slabs of different grades and varieties of finish.

A handsomely mounted exhibit of crude and refined oils in 200 flasks conveyed a conception of the variety and extent of the oil industry of the State. The whole exhibit, so far as s.p.a.ce would permit, was designed upon a scale significant of the size, importance, and value of the mineral wealth it represented.

The general scheme of installation of Pennsylvania's agricultural exhibit embraced an inclosing structure of show cases with plate-gla.s.s tops. On either side of the four corners was a ma.s.sive paneled port surmounted by a gla.s.s sphere 6 inches in diameter and filled with some farm products similar to that which was shown in the cases adjoining them.

Upon two of the keystones grains and seeds were displayed in gla.s.s jars, while corn was shown in rows of ears. Upon another keystone were shown fine specimens of fine tobacco, as also in the show cases adjoining the paG.o.da. All the tobacco shown was grown in Lancaster County. Wool was shown in the grease, or "unwashed," in small samples taken directly from the sheep. These samples were arranged upon black velvet, which lined the bottom of the cases in a large variety of beautiful forms, and const.i.tuted one of the most attractive features of the exhibits.

In the remaining show cases was found an unusually large collection of the manufactured products of the farmers' crops, including meals, flours, "breakfast foods," oils, liquors, pipes, etc.

Pennsylvania's fish exhibit was divided into five groups, namely: Live fish, mounted fish, birds and mammals, water colors and photographs of fishery subjects, legally confiscated devices for catching fish and angling materials.

Naturally, it was designed that the live-fish exhibit should be the prominent feature. Thirty-five aquaria were placed on two sides of the main aisle. Only prominent examples of various groups were displayed, consisting of game fishes, food fishes, the princ.i.p.al interior fishes commercially valuable as food, representatives of types which have no value either for game or food purposes and which were distinctively destructive, and also minnows.

The still exhibit was one of great beauty. The mounted groups were separated into two divisions, mounted fishes of the larger size and the mounted specimens of the birds and animals which prey upon fishes.

The greatest interest was probably shown in the exhibit of legally confiscated nets, draped in artistic fashion against a high board wall stained to represent a natural fence. Among them were placed fish on panels, which added materially to the effect. It was the only exhibit of its kind in the World's Fair, and it apparently proved to be one of the most attractive.