This article from the May 6, 1893, issue of Engineering and Mining News espouses the glory and shortfallings of the Columbian Exposition, which had recently opened in Chicago.

View of north lagoon, Art Palace and state buildings, photography by William Henry Jackson. [Image from the Ball State University digital media repository.]

The World’s Columbian Fair, which was opened at Chicago, May 1st, is already, in its buildings and promises to be in its exhibits, the most wonderful achievement the world has ever seen. The magic city of palaces gathered around the lakes and lagoons of Jackson Park is marvelously beautiful; no previous world’s fair ever approached it in the beauty or extent of its main buildings, their convenient arrangement or the attractiveness of its special buildings, representing the several countries and states. These state buildings and their contents alone would, a few years ago, have been considered a grand world’s fair, without any of the great buildings, a single one of which would have held the exhibits of any previous exposition and had space to spare.

It is impossible to give in words any adequate idea of this crowning achievement of modern civilization. Photography gives us the buildings in detail, but cannot produce the effect which their ensemble creates. The beauty of design of the great palaces, though infinite in variety, produces an absolute harmonious whole. There is no discord, nothing inappropriate or unsightly in design; nothing to offend the most exacting taste. The Columbian fair is a poem, a symphony, a creation worthy of our modern civilization, and our country and worthy the highest aspirations of the human race; a fitting place for the products of peace, a real home where may meet and consult those who contribute to the peace, progress, prosperity and happiness of mankind.

Electricity Building exterior view, photography by William Henry Jackson. [Image from the Ball State University digital media repository.]

Filled with unbounded admiration from the contemplation of the scene in Jackson Park, when President Cleveland, in fitting words, opened the fair, we cannot refrain from disappointment, in passing through the several buildings, to find them for the most part filled with packing boxes, or even, as in the Electrical Building, almost empty.

An immense discount has to be allowed on the inflated statements of the Chicago newspapers, which, on opening day, stated that 90 per cent. of the exhibits were ready. In reality, not even 10 per cent. were ready, possibly 20 per cent. additional were approaching completion; perhaps 40 per cent. more were visible in boxes, and 20 per cent. have not even reached the fair yet. The Fair will not be fully ready before the middle of June, but there is already enough to keep fully occupied those who go there with the object of studying any department of the exhibition.