There are three cities in the United States that are often compared in their prowess and cultural mix of preserved ethnic neighborhoods all working together to make a great and powerful city; they are New York, Boston, and Chicago. The Fourth Musketeer to this group, if you will, is Buffalo.
Interesting, though, is the number of decades that occurred where Chicago and Buffalo each flanked as bookends on Great Lake Commerce and they both partnered together and competed against each other for the position of pre-eminence.
Consider the boasts—true or false—starting with the fact that Chicago, the Windy City, is not as windy as Buffalo. Chicago’s average annual wind speed is 10.3 mph, while Buffalo’s is 11.8 mph. (Try waiting by your St Patty’s float to enter the parade by Niagara Square some March, and you’ll know some real wind). And Chicago is not known as the Queen City of the Great Lakes; Buffalo is. Imagine now, that Buffalo was once a vital contender with Chicago in terms of size and importance.
And another thing, Chicago—we were known as the City of Lights—what have you to say to that? Well ….apparently, Chicago does have a lot to say about that.
It was On This Day in 1892 that Chicago officially dedicated the World’s Columbian Exposition. A giant “white city” was built in the style of classical architecture along the shore of Lake Michigan. Beating Buffalo’s electrical claim by almost a decade, Chicago’s Expo lit up every night with a string of electric lights, the first time electric lights were used on such a large scale in America. It was at the Chicago World’s Fair that most Americans saw electricity in use for the first time.
Buffalo has many boasts about its Pan American Exposition in 1901, but give Chicago its due credit for initiating its fair’s International Exposition which was held in a building which for the first time was devoted to electrical exhibits. There was great debate as to how and from whom the electrical displays would be featured– the General Electric Company (backed by Edison and J.P. Morgan) had proposed to power the electric exhibits with direct current at the cost of one million dollars.
George Westinghouse, however, armed with Nikola Tesla’s alternating current (AC) system, sought to illuminate the Columbian Exposition in Chicago for half that price; and “Honest George” Westinghouse beat Edison and won the bid.
This was an historical moment, the very beginning of a major electrical revolution, as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power. In addition, a vast array of other electrical exhibits were all from commercial enterprises, including Thomas Edison’s company, and Western Electric.
According to Wikipedia, “Tesla’s high-frequency high-voltage lighting produced more efficient light with quantitatively less heat. A two-phase induction motor was driven by current from the main generators to power the system. Edison tried to prevent the use of his light bulbs in Tesla’s works.
Westinghouse’s proposal was chosen over the less efficient (but safer) direct-current system to power the fair. General Electric banned the use of Edison’s lamps in Westinghouse’s plan, in retaliation for losing the bid. Westinghouse’s company quickly designed a double-stopper lightbulb (sidestepping Edison’s patents) and was able to light the fair.
The Westinghouse Company displayed several polyphase systems. The exhibits included a switchboard, polyphase generators, step-up transformers, transmission line, step-down transformers, commercial size induction motors and synchronous motors, and rotary direct current converters (including an operational railway motor). The working scaled system allowed the public a view of a system of polyphase power which could be transmitted over long distances, and be utilized, including the supply of direct current. Meters and other auxiliary devices were also present.
Tesla displayed his phosphorescent lighting, powered without wires by high-frequency fields. Tesla displayed the first practical phosphorescent lamps (a precursor to fluorescent lamps). Tesla’s lighting inventions exposed to high-frequency currents would bring the gases to incandescence. Tesla also displayed the first neon lights. His innovations in this type of light emission were not regularly patented.”
Many who have written about the Buffalo 1901 Pan American Exposition have sought in their arguments to belittle Chicago’s earlier attempt, offering praises that suggested Chicago was a testing ground event for the greater celebration of modernity that would become Buffalo’s world stage offering.
But give Chicago’s World’s Fair its proper due—it was the place where most Americans first saw postcards, fiberglass, the zipper, the ice cream cone, Cracker Jack, Quaker Oats, Shredded Wheat, belly dancing, spray paint, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Ferris wheel.
Writer and radio host Garrison Keillor notes that “the Ferris wheel at the fair was 264 feet high, carried 2,000 passengers at a time, driven by two 1,000 horsepower steam engines turning on a 45-foot axel — the largest single piece of steel ever forged at that time. It was the most successful world’s fair ever held in the United States. In its half-year of existence, it drew 27 million visitors, or about half the American population at the time. The novelist Hamlin Garland wrote to his parents, “Sell the cookstove if necessary and come. You must see the Fair!”’
In keeping with World Fair traditions, Chicago’s exposition buildings were temporary installations, and as such were eventually demolished. The only building to remain was the Palace of Fine Arts now known as Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.
The exposition did, however, give rise to the “City Beautiful” movement which began in Chicago. The results included grand structures and fountains built around Olmsted (or Olmsted-inspired) parks, with shallow pools of water, and larger park systems, broad boulevards and parkways.
The Three Musketeers—New York, Boston and Chicago—all sit as points of a triangle in whose very middle exists the City of Buffalo. If we are the Fourth Musketeer of the group, add Johnny Come Lately (but boldly) the Fifth Musketeer of Toronto. With these guys sharing geographical company, Buffalo is the center, you might say, of a 500 mile radius that is the richest cultural, industrial, economic and ethnic powerhouse region on Earth. You’d wonder if we could begin to do more about squeezing the powers of that fact to our region’s benefit.
And that’s the news from On This Day from Buffalo World.
P.S. Got time for one more quick story from On This Day?
The year is 1671, and our story took place On This Day– the place is New France—covering the lands that extend from our Buffalo whip of river alignment to farther up from Montreal—and the times are feisty.
A fellow named Jean Talon is in the region, and he’s the Intendant of New France. Add the prefix “super” and you know what -intendant means.
The order came briskly On This Day—“Intendant Talon” required that the colony’s bachelors marry the women he’d ordered brought over from France.
It seems the Frenchies were dallying too virily with the native women to that point in time, and the French magistrates felt it better to sail a bunch of women from France’s homeland over to mix the colony up right.
They—the women shipped over—were the so-called Filles du Roy, loosely translated to “Babes of the King”—for the hearts of the French fellows at large.
Lovely idea, most thought. Better than the alternative choice. The penalty for not marrying one of these Filles du Roy was to lose one’s rights to fishing, hunting, and especially one’s fur-trading rights. The program was a complete success. Nuptials abounded.
C’est la vie; Au revoir, mon ami.
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