Mike's
1904 St. Louis World's Fair
Web Pages


Link to 1904 W.F. Society

Welcome to my 1904 World's Fair pages,
designed to provide information and promote interest about
the "World's Greatest Fair", the Louisiana Purchase Exposition,
held in St. Louis in 1904.

Many World Fairs were held in Europe and America during the Victorian era, from 1851-1915.
They provided an opportunity to exchange ideas and information, and to see the latest advances in arts,
sciences, inventions, agriculture, and helped propel the world into the Industrial Revolution.

After visiting these web pages, you can visit the 1904 World's Fair Society homepage
by clicking on the 1904 W. F. Society logo (top right).

Included in these pages are an overview of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, buildings, facts, and trivia. There's several pages about the Pike and its attractions, myths and legends, memorabilia, current and vintage World's Fair books, links to other websites,
and several calendars about events at "The Greatest of Expositions".
The links are below.

At the turn of the Century:

  • The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47; 95% of all births took place at home.
  • Only 14% of U.S. homes had a bathtub; only 8% had a telephone.
  • Only 6% of all Americans had graduated from high school; 90% of U.S. physicians had no college education.
  • The maximum speed limit for the 10,000 cars in the U.S. was 10 mph.
  • The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower, built for the Worlds Fair in Paris in 1888.
  • The average U.S. salary was 22 cents an hour; the average annual salary was $200-400 per year.
  • Eggs were 14 cents a dozen, and coffee was 15 cents a pound.

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION:

THE PIKE - Attractions and Concessions:

Overview of the Pike

 U.S. Attractions
 Foreign Culture Attractions
 Rides
 Other Notable Concessions

A Visit to "The Pike"

MYTHS, LEGENDS, and MEMORABILIA:

VIDEOS:

BOOKS:

BUILDINGS:

CALENDARS:

NOTE: About the monthly calendars are for 1904:
April 30 was a Saturday, and the Fair was closed on Sunday, May 1, 1904
In 2004, April 30 was a Friday, and May 1 is a Saturday.

NOTE: If you desire to print the monthly calendars, use landscape mode if your browser permits.
If it does not, you can save the file as a .htm file (using "File-Save"), then open the file in Word, edit as necessary (save as a Word .doc file, adjust margins, delete extra line returns, etc.), and then print the page in landscape mode.

References: The following primary references were used to create these pages, in addition to various 1904 WF websites.
Also, several other contemporary and vintage books, and also other listed web pages were used for additional reference.

  1. Mark Bennitt, The History of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, © 1905.
  2. David R. Francis, The Universal Exposition of 1904, © 1913.
  3. World's Fair Bulletins, published monthly by the World's Fair Publishing Co., 1901-1904.
  4. Special Thanks to Joe Sonderman, author of St. Louis World's Fair 365: An Intriguing Day-By-Day Look at the 1904 World's Fair, for use of his information in the 1904 Calendars.
  5. World's Fair Daily Programs, published daily by the World's Fair Publishing Co., 1904.
  6. Various souvenir 1904 World's Fair booklets.

Finally, another Special Thanks to thank Yvonne Suess for the use of her edited/colorized photograph of Festival Hall.