Nostalgia and Promise Meet in Old St. Louis

What should a girl pack for a week in St. Louis?

Two suits, for starters, and two linen skirts. All the shirtwaists she has, and one evening gown. At least four pairs of shoes and an everyday hat, plus one hat to go with each outfit.

And, assuming the weather is warm, which it was when this list was published for the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, she should not forget a folding fan, an umbrella, a parasol, one pair of dark blue or smoked glasses and honey-almond cream for sunburn.

“It is not necessary to bring gloves to the fair because nobody wears gloves in St. Louis in summer,” a New York scribe wrote.

I read this advice in a glass case of World’s Fair memorabilia at the St. Louis Museum of History in Forest Park, and then scanned my reflection: oversized cotton sweater, khaki pants, trench coat, springy-soled walking shoes and no hat, everyday or otherwise. Comfortable, yes, but a social outcast by turn-of-the-century standards.

Fair’s Dedication

The 1904 extravaganza was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson’s bold bargain that set America’s sights on the West and brought St. Louis into the United States.

Twenty-million visitors came to Forest Park between May and December that year to see the glittering palaces and pavilions of a dream city turned to gold and ivory by the illumination of more than 210,000 incandescent bulbs. Electricity, that unseen miracle so recently harnessed, was used to cast white magic on classic domes and facades and fountains.

This was the World’s Fair of the song “Meet Me in St. Louis.” This was the fair where members of the Board of Lady Managers sought in vain to build an exposition hall to show women’s achievements and activities. This was the fair in which black Americans, including Booker T. Washington, failed to get support for an information and hospitality center for black fair-goers.

According to a museum display, neither group was able to “wrest power or funds” from the all-male exposition commission, which determined that “it was improper to erect a building for the exclusive use of any race or people.”

Spirited crowds came to witness the technological daring of the new century, to have fun and eat exotic foods, to promenade and dance. An Episcopal bishop in St. Louis proclaimed that “one week at the 1904 Exposition is better than a year of foreign travel.”

The one palace that survives from the 1904 Fair is now the St. Louis Museum of Art. The only other structure intact from that whirl is the flight cage at the neighboring St. Louis Zoo, a monster of girders and screen that was designed by the Smithsonian Institution and bought at fair’s end by the citizens of St. Louis.

The art museum on a Saturday morning is vibrant with schoolchildren. I watched as second-graders sprawled near blank swatches of paper in front of a Japanese screen. Colored pens were within reach, but untouched.

“Draw the part that you like first,” the teacher was saying. “Maybe the rocks, or tree branches, or plum blossoms.”

“What are plum blossoms?” asked one lad.

In a nearby gallery a girl with wide-set eyes, wearing blue jeans and an aqua sweater, sat for a life class. Rembrandt’s 1662 “Portrait of a Young Man” smiled down at her.

A young couple holding hands in front of a Van Gogh disagreed over whether the fruits in the basket were apples or mangoes. “The artist says they’re apples,” the girl whispered. “Not like any apples I’ve seen,” scoffed her boyfriend.

I perused a sly show by six contemporary sculptors, including Englishman Richard Long, who had pressed his hands in Mississippi river mud from local banks and filled a wall with hand prints. It had the primitive repetition of the Asmat art of New Guinea or the proud first palm prints carried home by kindergartners.

City’s Union Station

After touring the stunning Cathedral of St. Louis, whose lavish mosaics were made by artisans from Ravenna, and the Missouri Botanical Garden, established in 1859, I returned to Union Station, which opened in 1894 and was once the largest and busiest passenger rail terminal in the world.

In its heyday more than 100,000 passengers arrived and departed daily. It was a gateway to the East and West, a gateway to the fair.

Now Union Station has been restored as a vibrant marketplace, a festive crossroads for shoppers and diners and history buffs. As I slowed to admire racing locomotives in The Great Train Store, I recalled what I had read in a 1904 guide:

“It is very unwise to attempt to do too much sightseeing at the start, or to overtax the energies. The time spent moving about should be increased gradually. . . . To really understand and appreciate the Fair, you should spend the entire summer in St. Louis.”

While acknowledging the wisdom of such a pace, I ran for a trolley so that I could catch the last glint of sundown on the stainless-steel skin of the city’s Gateway Arch.