The Devil's spawn

While architect Daniel Burnham plowed away at plans for Chicago to host the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, Dr. H. H. Holmes began a path of slaughter.

Fast-forward to this decade. In 2004, Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, a nonfictional account of the coinciding events, became a best-seller. For three years, the reading public has been clamoring for guided tour of the spots mentioned in Larson’s book says Susan Ross, director of communications for the Chicago Architecture Foundation. In April, the CAF obliged.

We recently joined more than 100 others for the Devil in the White City Companion Bus Tour and while we dreaded the 45-minute slide show and lecture that preceded it, that turned out to be the best part.

The slide show explained how, during the Columbian Exposition, the Ferris wheel and carbonated beverages made their world debut, the Pledge of Allegiance was recited for the first time, Pabst beer earned its blue ribbon and the exhibition’s fair’s six-month run made Chicago a global city.

Readers of Larson’s book will remember that the buildings that made up the fair’s “White City” were designed to be temporary. The only structures built to last were the Fine Arts Building (now the Museum of Science & Industry), what is now La Rabida Children’s Hospital and an administration building not on the fairgrounds (now housing an Art Institute of Chicago exhibition hall). Because little else remains, the slide show provided a succinct abridgment of Larson’s book and the staggering amount of infrastructure, strategy and design that went into hosting this fair.

“Many of the images came from a wonderful resource at Illinois Institute of Technology, where they have digitized several books on the fair that appeared immediately after the fair was over,” says CAF volunteer Chris Multhauf, who spent a year researching the events to develop the presentation.

Our appetites whetted, we boarded coach buses (comfy and equipped with bathrooms) for the two-and-a-half-hour bus tour. Our guide took full advantage of the drive south to Jackson Park (where the fair took place), identifying where single young women—potential victims of the killer—would have lived. We got off the bus on Prairie Avenue to gaze at the Romanesque Glessner House, which our guide said served as inspiration to a young Frank Lloyd Wright, who was turned off by the Old Europe style of the White City.

Next, we drove along the Midway Plaisance, an east-west strip between Jackson and Washington Parks, that served as the fair’s mile-long corridor of fun (the Ferris wheel, camel rides, Eskimos and tethered balloon rides were among the exotic highlights). But we definitely had to use our imaginations gazing at the empty strip.

Arriving at the MSI, we walked to the rear entrance (fairgoers would have arrived via gondola in the lagoon behind the building) and our guide discussed the building’s Beaux Arts style—the prevailing design of the White City. Then we strolled around the verdant, beautiful “Wooded Island” south of the museum, which World’s Fair landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted had envisioned as a tranquil respite from the crowds and summer heat.

Fans of Larson’s book will no doubt appreciate the tour, but for anyone not familiar with the story, it may be a bit short on sights. However, Multhauf says that relics of the fair can be found if you know where to look. There’s a wrought-iron fence at the Burnham and John Wellborn Root–designed Sidney Kent House (2944 S Michigan Ave) and an organ inside Quinn Chapel (2401 S Wabash Ave) that originate from the fair’s German pavilion; both were pointed out during the tour.

“It’s sad that there’s nothing left, and that’s the disappointing part,” says 28-year-old Fadia Akrabawi, a huge fan of Larson’s book. “You can’t blame the tour. It’s just that after you read the book, you want to see all this stuff and you can’t.”

The Devil in the White City tour takes place the third Friday and fourth Sunday of each month.