THE GOLDEN DOOR.—The main portal of the Transportation Building, because of its strikingly attractive features both of design and coloring, became known as ” The Golden Door,” and certainly deserved the admiring title given it by the public. The Transportation Building, as a whole, was a complete departure in style and hue from the great mass of structures which gave the White City its name, and its greatest entrance was its most novel and beautiful part. It was, beyond question, the chief illustration at the World’s Fair of what can be done in architecture by combining exquisite reliefs with oriental richness of painting, though in the decoration of entrances architects and artists had lavished all their genius and invention. The doorway is an arch, or, more properly speaking, a quintuple arch, the five blending into a whole elaborately ornamented and embellished with delicate bas-reliefs. The combined arches form a semi-circular environment for a symbolical mural painting in the background and just above the entrance proper. The impression is thus produced of a picture gorgeously framed, and this effect is further enhanced by a square, treated in a similar manner to the arches, and joining the peripheries of the exterior one. This remarkable portal was painted a pea-green and the bas-relief was overlaid with silver leaf, the result being something dazzling in the extreme. Not merely because of its richness and originality, but because of the lesson it taught by comparison with less florid though grander styles the Golden Doorway was certainly among the most notable architectural features shown.
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KING BULL AND HIS LAPLAND – Quite apart from the fact that it contained representatives of a people made famous in the school books and geographies as living near the North Pole and owning reindeer, the Lapland Village at the Fair had an attraction in the personality of its leading people. Lapland is not a monarchy, but the most notable figures in the village were King Bull, as he was named, and his wife, Queen Margaritha. King Bull was said to be over one hundred years old and a great-grandfather, but was an extretnely vigorous old gentleman, as is shown, to an extent, by his attitude in the illustration. Old King Cole in his palmiest days was not a more gallant roysterer than Old King Bull, the chief difference being that the latter cared nothing for ” fiddlers three ” if he could get bowls enough. The fierce light which beats upon a throne caused gossip to be circulated regarding King Bull, and the newspapers dared to say that American drinks so tickled his palate that he remained much of the time in a state of Kingly ecstacy while his noble Queen could, on occasions, encourage her lord by mild example. A great couple they were, certainly, despite the vagueness of their kingdom. The village contained quite a colony of sturdy Laplanders, and they, with their reindeers, sledges and dogs, and their costume, too warm for comfort in the temperate zone, were objects of much interest. The illustration gives a good view of the conical dirt-covered huts erected in the village to afford a knowledge of how the Laplanders contrive to keep warm in their own cold country.
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