World's fair commemorates
Lewis and Clark Exposition
BYTYPH TUCKER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORTLAND — In the summer of
1905, people from across America
came to Oregon to watch a pair of
elk dive into the Willamette River
from a platform two stories high.
And they saw Princess Trixie the
Mathematical Horse count change
back from a cash register.
These were among the oddities at
the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition.
The main attractions at the fair were
the wonders and technology of the day.
People stood in awe as they
watched flying dirigibles. They saw di
als register an unseen force called elec
tricity on the Voltmeter. And they
heard scratchy recordings of their own
voices created by the Dictaphone.
More than a million people came
to Portland for the world’s fair, held
to celebrate the 100-year anniversary
of Lewis and Clark’s arrival on the
Pacific Coast.
A century later, the Oregon Histori
cal Society has recreated life-size ver
sions of the exposition’s exhibits, to
give people the experience of walking
through the world’s fair.
The exhibit, “A Fair to Remember:
The 1905 Lewis & Clark Exposi
tion,” is a part of three years of
events held across the country to
mark the bicentennial of the 1803
06 Voyage of Discovery.
The new exhibit has been set up in
a large room at the Historical Society,
Oregon’s main history museum.
A 20-foot-tall picture of the fair’s
Grand Colonnade is at the entrance.
Ladies in frilly ankle-length gowns
walk arm-in-arm with suited gentle
men along a columned walkway.
“We wanted to immediately give
people a sense of the scale of this
event,” said Lisa Berndt, curator of
the show. “Throughout the exhibit
we have huge murals to give them
that sense.”
Also on display are a Benson auto
mobile under a glass case, movies
similar to those shown at the fair and
blueprints of the large buildings con
structed just for the 1905 fair.
Another large photo shows the ex
position’s huge Forestry Building,
built from whole trees, which were
stacked horizontally to form the
walls of the building. Trees also
served as columns, holding up a 70
foot-tall vaulted chamber.
“They were blown away by the
Forestry Building,” said Carl Abbott,
consultant to the exhibit and writer
of “The Great Extravaganza: Portland
and the Lewis and Clark Exposition.”
The trees used in the building were
cut along the lower Columbia River
and their size “spoke to Oregon’s role
as a provider of natural resources,”
he said.
The expo’s midway was called
“The Trail,” which had a touch of the
exotic: Dancing girls from the streets
of Cairo, live insects and the bones of
a Dodo bird were just a few stops
along “The Trail.”
Many people returned home from
the exposition with stories of innova
tions and oddities for families who
had never dreamed of such things.
People also took home souvenirs,
and the historical society’s exhibit
displays some of them. They include
salt shakers, a cigar case, a pair of
scissors, tea cups and a pocket knife
— all with the Lewis and Clark Expo
sition logo on them.
Descriptions of the 1905 fair are
placed around the exhibit. They ex
plain that the fair changed the face of
Portland, spurring economic, cultural
and civic growth.
Tains made traveling to Portland
affordable for many people living
outside the Northwest.
“Fares came down, and it was
possible to put your family on the train
in Chicago, travel out to Oregon, see the
fair, maybe take the train to the coast
and then go back home,” Abbott said.
Portland’s population jumped after
the world’s fair by about 100,000 be
tween 1905 and 1912, Abbott said.
Portland’s relatively flat skyline be
came dotted with 12-story buildings.
World’s fairs took place in cities all
over the country every few years be
ginning in 1853 and were great diver
sions of the day. San Diego, Philadel
phia and St. Louis hosted world’s
fairs but perhaps most famous was
the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933.
But not all of them were success
ful. The one in Hampton Roads, Va.,
two years after Portland’s was a flop,
Abbott said.
Historian Joseph Gaston said in 1911
that “the very decision to hold the ex
position strengthened every man who
put down a dollar for it; and from that
very day, Portland business, Portland
real estate and Portland’s great future
commenced to move up.”
Going to the fair could very well
have been the trip of a lifetime in an
era when people often lived and died
in the same county they were born,
curator Lisa Berndt said.
“The fair delivered the world to
their doorstep,” she said. “They
could see an Australian boomerang
expert, a Coast Guard lifesaving drill,
participate in a Japanese peace cere
mony and see goods and inventions
from around the world. ”
It was a huge party that lasted 137
days, Berndt said, and it touched the
lives of many people.
“There was a real uptick to the
community after the fair,” Berndt
said. “And there was also a shift in
mind-set. Even years afterward, peo
ple talked about the old Portland ver
sus the new Portland and the water
shed event was the fair. ”
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