“However grand, complete and astonishing the World’s Fair may appear to the public by daylight, it is at night that it can be seen in all its splendor and magnificence,” wrote the World’s Columbian Exposition Illustrated [read the article here]. Another description of the nightly illumination of the Court of Honor comes from the newspaper story reprinted below, originally from an (unknown) Chicago newspaper.

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Turning Day into Night

“After dark at the World’s Fair will be one of the things that scribes and chroniclers will never be tired of describing. When even the garish splendor of the transportation building softens into beauty under the pale beams of the moon, and all the staff is marble and all the tinsel gold, then the grand basin, the heart and center of the fair, will be a sight for wonder-satiated visitors to fall into new raptures over.

It will present a picture in comparison with which the fabled gardens and palaces of eastern romancers will be commonplace. Every building will be outlined in light, a thousand gems will sparkle in the waters of the lagoon, and Diana, the goddess of the bow, will revolve on the darkest night in a blaze of glory.

As usual with all things at the fair, the effect will be something unequalled before, and in some respects it will be quite new. It will be something that has been dreamed of, but never attempted—the decoration of a large area by the light of thousands of tiny incandescent lamps.

The decorative effects of rows and clusters of incandescent lamps were made known to Chicagoans on a very miniature scale during dedication week, when hundreds journeyed to Michigan Avenue to see the Auditorium’s triumphal arch, or gazed at the rival displays on the corner of Dearborn and Madison streets. Multiply such displays by the thousands, stretch the beaded lines of light along the topmost corner of every building facing the grand basin at Jackson Park, add the changing colors of the fountains nine times as imposing as Mr. Yerkes’s,[1] and a vision of the heart of the fair after dark can be faintly imagined. If the lighting of the fair does not rank hereafter as the ninth wonder of the world, its architects will be greatly disappointed.

The buildings whose cornices are to be outlined in electric light are the peristyle, the Music Hall and casino, and the manufactures, electricity, mining, administration, machinery and agricultural halls. In the peristyle lights will also be placed in the paneled ceiling and in the deep flutes behind the columns in such a manner that the lamps will be invisible from the front or side, the idea being to throw the columns into strong relief and hide the source of light.

The treatment of the colonnade in machinery hall will be the same, only the soft glow of the lamps will be seen in the loggia lighting up the painted walls and the gilded capitals of the columns.

The illumination of the administration building will be carried out in perfect detail. Not only will lights run from point to point along the cornices, but down the ribs from the corona to the base of the dome and round the corona itself. In the deep loggia, from which the unrivaled splendor of the basin will be best discernible, the columns will be lighted as in the peristyle, from behind.

Above every loggia, between the domes of the pavilions, will stand a row of four colossal torches, from each of which will leap forth nightly a rushing, twisting flame, such as might have enveloped in her last moments Haggard’s mystic “She.” These gas-torches will send their flames upward to the height of fifteen feet, and with an effect both lurid and startling.

Above the dome of the agricultural building Diana’s statue is placed on a golden ball in a shallow, cup-like depression. Under the inside rim of the cup will be a hidden row of incandescent lamps, the light from which will illuminate the form of the goddess without betraying its origin. Many a visitor will find himself wondering how that matchless form is bathed in light.

Yet another beautiful effect will be obtained by placing lights along the lines of docking which banks the grand basin. Just four feet above the level the lamps will be placed and their brilliancy will be doubled by reflection in the waters beneath. To complete the decoration of the basin the bridges across the canals and the flower beds on the south side will also be outlined in light. As for the great electric fountains which will stand at the west end of the basin, it is sufficient to say that Yerkes fountain will be a toy in comparison with them; their brilliant colors reflected upon the sky will be the one changing feature which will add new life each night to the set scene around the basin.

Engineer James A. Lounsbury [2], who has charge of the incandescent lighting of the fair, estimates the number of lamps required for the illumination of the basin at 12,000.

“It is a big scheme of decoration,” said he, in speaking of the matter today, “but one which the exposition will carry through successfully. The main idea running through it is to make the light subservient to the architecture, bringing out the works of the builders without making the source of light too prominent. It will, we believe, be something for visiting electricians to study as well as admire.”

NOTES

[1] Mr. Charles T. Yerkes, the “street car millionaire,” presented to the people of Chicago a great electric fountain in Lincoln Park. The nightly display of colored lights attracted many visitors during the 1893 World’s Fair.

[2] James A. Lounsbury, who worked as an electrical engineer in the Mechanical and Electrical Department of the Exposition, was from Hartford, Connecticut.

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SOURCE

“Turning Day into Night” Hartford (CT) Courant p. 2.