“Combine all the adjectives in the English language that express beauty, loveliness, grace and perfection, even then you will fail to describe a gala night at the Exposition.”
— World’s Columbian Exposition Illustrated January 1894.

July 4, 1893, was a special day at the World’s Columbian Exposition, designated as “United States Day.” Attendance swelled to enormous 283,273 paid visitors, making this the largest attendance of any day so far—even greater than on Opening Day—and perhaps the largest festival attendance in United States history.

This article from the January 1894 issues of World’s Columbian Exposition Illustrated, describes the beauty of the fairgrounds on the evening of Independence Day. The author’s first verse (“The fragrance of fair garden stole …”) comes from “The Kiss” by William Sinclair Lord, published in Blue and Gold (A.C. McClurg, 1896). The second verse (“Jeweled with ivory palaces like these”) is from Richard Watson Gilder’s poem “The Vanishing City,” a tribute to the 1893 World’s Fair published in the October 1893 issue of The Century.

A NIGHT AT THE EXPOSITION.

July 4th, 1893, was one of the many red letter days at the Exposition, with nearly three hundred thousand people in attendance, and it was a fitting celebration of the Nation’s Independence.

While the sun with its heat and brilliancy was disappearing in the west, the chime of bells on Machinery Hall was entertaining the immense concourse of people with soothing music, when suddenly the dome of Administration building is in a flood of light from thousands of electric burners, quickly followed by the lighting up of the surrounding buildings and the Court of Honor.

“Floating the original Stars and Stripes in front of the Administration Building” [edited image from the Chicago Daily Tribune, July 5, 1893, p. 9.]

Presently the electric fountains began to play and colored streams of water in artistic combinations of beauty, were forced into view to return again and make glad the fish of our inland sea.

An illustration of the Fourth of July fireworks display from The Graphic Chicago July 8. 1893.

The lagoons and grand basin were lined with points of light, while the electric launches and Venetian gondolas glide swiftly around in every direction, filled with happy people who are entranced with the beauty of the scene. Enormous search lights, vying with the orbs of the heavens, at short intervals peer in every direction, adding brilliancy and variety to the picture. Very soon the gorgeous display of fireworks commences on the Lake Front and continues for an hour with brilliant surprises sufficient to last a life time. Who could tell the story of enchantment that meets the eye in every direction?

Imagine the “fire-flies” in a mid-summer night, as they pass and repass in all directions, showing their flickering light; increase the number a thousand times and you would not have the brightness of a single electric burner, hundreds of which are around and about you on every hand. Think of Aladdin with his wonderful lamps and recall the story of the wonders he saw, then gaze again at the almost heavenly vision that is being photographed on your mind through the medium of your own stereoscopic eyes.

See those bursting bombs of colored lights, high up in the air and gently descending in showers of gold, blue crimson and yellow. Look at those immense rockets of blazing fire and burning fuse.

Walk east to the lake and admire the long row of colored lights and torches, that seemed to be burning on the surface of the water in all colors of the rainbow; watch the passing and repassing crowds, as they hurry from one place to another, as though afraid of missing a single one of the many attractive pieces.

Walk to Wooded Island and secure a glimpse of Fairy Land outdone; see everywhere among the trees, bushes and along the walks, Chinese lanterns, in all shapes and colors, with the small jack lanterns arranged in countless numbers along the edge of the Island and in the shadows of the underbrush.

“The fragrance of fair garden stole
Through silent spaces dusky,
Detective fire-flies flashed patrol
Down many pathways musky.”

Watch the launches, as they pass in all directions, with their decorations of colored lights and freighted with happy spirits who are not dreaming, but alive to the matchless beauty on every hand.

Combine all the adjectives in the English language that express beauty, loveliness, grace and perfection, even then you will fail to describe a gala night at the Exposition.

“Jeweled with ivory palaces like these;
By day a miracle, a dream by night;
Yet real as beauty is, and as the seas,
Whose waves glance back keen lines of glittering light.”