“One day spent among the curious works of nature found in the Fish and Fisheries building was worth a whole year’s reading about them.”  — “Exposition as an Educator” in Campbell’s Illustrated History of the World’s Columbian Exposition.

A new resident to a Chicago city park has been (occasionally) making waves and making international news. An alligator spotted earlier this week swimming the lagoon of Humboldt Park is now drawing large crowds hoping to catch a glimpse of the tropical creature. The problem is … an alligator has no business being in a Chicago pond.

“Chance the Snapper”

A Chicago Herpetological Society representative known as “Alligator Bob” has been working to lure and trap the wayward gator, who has since earned the nickname “Chance the Snapper” (an homage to Chicago musician and activist Chance the Rapper). The reptile has remained elusive, as has an explanation for how a creature more common to Florida waters ended up in Chicago.

To help put the current media circus in perspective, the Chicago Tribune dug up a fun story from their archives about a pair of alligators that came to the 1893 World’s Fair. We’ve added some more information about the strange tale of a reptilian duo at the Columbian Exposition.

Joseph W. Collins, Chief of the Fish and Fisheries Department. [Image from Johnson, Rossiter A History of the World’s Columbian Exposition Volume 2 – Departments. D. Appleton and Co., 1897.]

Columbus and General Davis

Two alligators arrived on the fairgrounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago on April 17, 1893, two weeks before Opening Day in Jackson Park. The pair of gators–one twelve and the other twelve-and-a-half feet long—came from St. John’s River near Rockledge, Florida. Their hunter, S. M. Hamberger, noted that one of the creatures had given him and his men a “hot fight” by smashing them with its powerful tail while they were congratulating themselves on their capture. Although “badly bruised and frightened,” the men survived the ordeal and got the alligators packed for their trip north to Chicago.

Receiving the “savage specimens” at the World’s Fair was Joseph W. Collins, Chief of the Fish and Fisheries Department. Florida alligators would make for an exciting display, and the creatures were named “Columbus” and “General Davis” (after George R. Davis, the Director-General of the Columbian Exposition).

The Superintendent of Installations for the Fish and Fisheries Department provided (what he thought was) “comfortable quarters” for his reptilian guests: a wire-fenced pen on the edge of the Lagoon, near the bridge that was opposite the south entrance to the Fisheries Building.

Were the Florida gators destined for an outdoor display or for an indoor exhibit in the Fisheries Building? A series of outside ornamental ponds had been planned as an extension of the main indoor exhibits of the Fisheries Building. In addition to displaying pond fish and aquatic plants, the ponds reportedly would have housed seals, sea lions, sea otters, manatees, and alligators. However, the plan for such an elaborate outdoor display of aquatic life had to be abandoned when “much of the space around the Fisheries Building was secured for restaurants.” [Johnson, 511] So, the lagoon pen was going to serve as their housing site at least temporarily.

The Fisheries Building, looking north. Underneath the bridge seen at the center right was the site of a short-lived home for two Florida alligators. [Image from Campbell’s Illustrated History of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Volume II. (M. Juul & Co., 1894).]

Great jaws opened and shut savagely

The problem was … soon after arriving in their new home, the gators showed their displeasure with Chicago’s climate. No one in the Fish and Fisheries Department had thought about the effect that such a sudden difference in temperature–between the tropical waters of Florida and the lagoon fed by cool Lake Michigan–would have on the cold-blooded reptiles. After a day or two in the pen, the unhappy gators were shivering and needed to be moved to warmer quarters. The Florida monsters, however, had no intention of making this easy.

Fearful workers eventually were able to lasso the angry alligators’ mouths and get them into wooden boxes for transfer to the Horticulture Building, where hot-air flues provided a ninety-degree heat source to warm-up the creatures. The trauma, though, was just too much for poor General Davis, who developed pneumonia and died on Thursday, May 4.

Sanitary Engineer William S. MacHarg, who served as the ex officio funeral director for all the dead animals on the fairground, came with his crew to collect the body on Sunday, May 7. An Irishman instructed to haul out the carcass of General Davis ripped open the wooden box and grabbed the alligator confidently by the tail.

The problem was … he grabbed the very-much-still-alive-and-now-really-angry alligator Columbus, whose “great jaws opened and shut savagely with a clash like a steel trap.” The ruckus reportedly could be heard all the way down at the Administration Building.

The group of workmen fled the scene in terror. While the Irishman refused to return and finish the job, his colleagues managed to nail the lid back onto the box holding Columbus and then collect the “casket” holding General Davis. The wagon driver earned the alligator’s hide as a reward, but the newspaper did not report what happened to the remains.

We are left wondering if the remains of an alligator from Florida are buried somewhere in Jackson Park and if the alligator Columbus ever got out of that wooden box to greet World’s Fair visitors.

Meanwhile, his distant cousin lurks beneath the surface of another Chicago park ten miles north.

UPDATE: “Chance the Snapper” has been caught and will head to a new home in Florida. Still no word on the whereabouts of alligator “Columbus.”

A display of animals native to British Guiana, including an alligator, in the Agricultural Building. [Image from Campbell’s Illustrated History of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Volume II. (M. Juul & Co., 1894).]

REFERENCES

Campbell, James B. Campbell’s Illustrated History of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Volume II. M. Juul & Co., 1894.

“Columbus and Gen. Davis Arrive” Chicago Daily Tribune Apr. 20, 1893, p. 2.

Johnson, Charles J. “The Humboldt alligator is all the rage, but the 1893 World’s Fair gators in Jackson Park are the original creatures from the Chicago lagoon” Chicago Tribune, July 11, 2019.

Johnson, Rossiter A History of the World’s Columbian Exposition Volume 2 – Departments. D. Appleton and Co., 1897.

“Picks Up the Wrong Alligator. Funeral at Jackson Park Causes a Panic Among the Attendants” Chicago Daily Tribune May 7, 1893, p. 2.

“World’s Fair Notes” Chicago Daily Tribune Apr. 18, 1893, p. 2.