First-hand accounts of visitors to the Columbian Exposition can provide a fascinating and unique perspective on the great World’s Fair of 1893. Freelance writer Dave Sargent writes in the April 13, 2018, issue of the Lewiston (Maine) Sun Journal about his grandmother’s visit to Chicago in July of 1893. She recorded her accounts in a personal journal and had her story published in a newspaper many years later.

The Maine State Building, as depicted on the cover of the September 6, 1893, issue of the Chicago Inter Ocean Illustrated Supplement.

Hattie Field Sargent and her cousin, both 19-year-old teachers, departed Lewiston by train. Along with several other local school teachers and officials, they were heading for the World’s Columbian Exposition. Miss Sargent wrote about crossing the Great Lakes by ferry and riding the marvelous Ferris Wheel.

She must have been delighted when, in 1894, a major piece of the World’s Fair found its way downeast to a spot near her hometown. The previous summer, the handsome Maine State Building, designed by architect Charles Sumner Frost and constructed of native granite and marble, stood in the northeast corner of the fairgrounds, among the other state buildings.

At the close of the Fair in Chicago, the Maine State Building was purchased by the Ricker Family, who had it disassembled, moved by train to Maine, and then reassembled at their Poland Spring Resort, where it served as the gallery and library. The restored building still stands today, one of only a very few that survive from the 1893 World’s Fair!