The Chicago Tribune recently launched a new podcast series called “From the Midway” that explores the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition on its 125th anniversary year.

Host Colleen Connolly, digital news editor at the Trib, promises to offer listeners stories about “the legacy left behind by the fair, including the remnants that can still be viewed today, the cultural legacy of the fair, the evolution of the Ferris wheel and products that made their debut at the exposition, and still exist today.”

She delivers in the first episode, “Relics of the Fair” (12:25 min.), which reports on many notable remnants of the great Exposition. We greatly enjoy visiting vestiges of the Exposition, so thought this a great way to open the podcast series. Olivia Mahoney, senior curator at the Chicago History Museum, describes the two buildings in Chicago that survived from the Fair and are still in use and then discusses some interesting items in the museum’s collection–including one that is not currently on display but which we’d love to survey some time! In a phone call to Rebecca Graff, assistant professor of anthropology at Lake Forest College, we learn about her archaeological work to excavate remnants of the Ohio State Building. (Note: Prof. Graff will be presenting on her work at the Newberry Library on October 4, 2018.)

We’ll offer one small correction to Episode One regarding the destruction of the original Statue of the Republic. While fires did sweep through the fairgrounds in the months following the closing of the fair, taking down several structures including the Peristyle right behind the statue, “Big Mary” continued to stand watch over the fairgrounds for many more months, though by 1895 she had been painted white. Not until the summer of 1896 did she finally come down, intentionally and unceremoniously burned in the early morning hours of August 28 by order of the South Park Commissioners … an unbefitting funeral for the golden colossus of Chicago’s great fair.

The podcast is available on Stitcher and Spreaker, and though the Chicago Tribune website.