Episode 102 | World's Fairs Part 3: St. Louis 1904, the Tower of Jewels & the Babies on the Midway
1 hr 41 min
Episode 102 | World's Fairs Part 3: St. Louis 1904, the Tower of Jewels & the Babies on the Midway We said we'd finish the fairs. Tonight we did. St. Louis 1904: 1,200 acres, Festival Hall and the Cascades, the Palace of Electricity, airships over the grounds, the Philippine Reservation, and a Ferris wheel that got moved twice and then dynamited. I go through the official story and the construction photos that don't add up: no tools, full-grown trees, "plaster and jute" palaces, and how little of it was kept. Then San Francisco 1915: nine years after the 1906 quake and fire, they open the Panama-Pacific Exposition on fill from the ruins, with a Tower of Jewels and searchlights you can still feel in the photos. The Palace of Fine Arts is the "temporary" building that refused to disappear. We finish with the incubator babies on the midway, Martin Couney and the credentials nobody has ever been able to prove, and the six things every fair has in common. Official story, what bugs me about it, and you decide. Question everything. 00:00 Intro 00:54 Welcome to Episode 102 02:39 Recap: Crystal Palace, Chicago and Buffalo 07:18 Thanks for 100 episodes & An Improbable Atlas 08:37 St. Louis 1904: a year late, 1,200 acres 10:30 Construction photos that don't add up 19:45 Festival Hall and the Cascades 23:41 The organ that survived 26:24 Festival Hall at night and the Palace of Electricity 31:39 The Pike, the food firsts, and the Liberty Bell 34:28 Airships and the Santos-Dumont story 37:04 The 1904 Olympic marathon 41:43 The Philippine Reservation 45:54 The Ferris wheel gets dynamited 48:20 What survived, and after the Fair was over 57:38 San Francisco, April 18, 1906 01:00:02 The Panama-Pacific Exposition 01:03:45 Palace of Machinery and Lincoln Beachey 01:05:10 The Tower of Jewels 01:08:23 Searchlights and the Scintillator 01:10:22 Palace of Horticulture 01:14:26 The Liberty Bell, Edison Day and Henry Ford 01:16:22 Palace of Fine Arts: 50 years of "temporary" 01:19:44 1...