Colleen Connolly’s piece “How Chicago beat New York to get the 1893 World’s Fair” in the May 11 Chicago Tribune provides a short history of Chicago’s effort to win the bid to host the World’s Columbian Exposition.
Testimony by Republican Rep. Robert Hitt of Illinois before the House of Representatives in February 1890 argued for holding the event in Chicago, then a city only 53 years old:
“The people of Chicago are unanimous, hearty, enthusiastic; no word of bickering, no division of opinion, no whisper of partisanism, no jealousy of neighbors, no powerful body of land-owners who feel wronged and are determined to interpose litigation to stop them. They are Americans who love their country and will use every endeavor, from first to last, to make the fair such that every American in the farthest corner of the Republic will be satisfied.”
The Tribune article also provides a link to a poem written by a New Yorker and published in the Chicago Tribune on February 20, 1892.
The world’s big eye is on you, let it see
A great creation that is worthy of thee.
Chicago Wins! “Uncle Sam Awards the World’s Fair to the Fairest of all his Daughters” [Colorized image based on cartoon in the February 25, 1890, Chicago Daily Tribune.]