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World's Columbian Exposition

World's Columbian Exposition

The World's Columbian Exposition (also called The Chicago World's Fair), a World's fair, was held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the New World. Chicago had beaten New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self image, and American industrial optimism.

Opening ceremony

Opening ceremonies for the fair were held on October 21, 1892, but the fairgrounds were not actually opened to the public until May 1, 1893. The fair continued until October 30, 1893. In addition to recognizing the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World, the fair also served to show the world that Chicago had risen from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire which had destroyed much of the city in 1871.

Description

1871 The exposition was located in Jackson Park and on the Midway Plaisance on 630 acres (2.5 km²) in the neighborhoods of Hyde Park and Woodlawn. The layout of the fairgrounds was created by Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Beaux-Arts architecture of the buildings was under the direction of Daniel Burnham, director of Works for the fair. The Director of the American Academy in Rome, Francis David Millet, directed the painted mural decorations. Indeed, it was a coming-of-age for the arts and architecture of the "American Renaissance". Most of the buildings were based on classical architecture, and the area taken up by the fair around the Court of Honor was known as "The White City". Louis Sullivan's polychrome proto-Modern Transportation Building was an outstanding exception, but his opinion was that the "White City" had set back modern American architecture by forty years. Early in July, a Wellesley College English teacher named Katharine Lee Bates was a visitor at the fair, and was rather more impressed by it than was Sullivan. In her poem (later a song) America the Beautiful, the phrase, Thine alabaster cities gleam, was inspired by the "White City". Some famous visitors to the fair included Thomas Edison, Susan B. Anthony, Jane Addams, Scott Joplin, Annie Oakley, Eadweard Muybridge, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Frederick Douglass, Henry Blake Fuller, J.P. Morgan, Henry Adams, Andrew Carnegie, W.D. Howells, Hamlin Garland, and President Benjamin Harrison. Of the more than 200 buildings erected for the fair, the only one which still stands in place is the Palace of Fine Arts. From the time the fair closed until 1920, the building housed the Field Columbian Museum (now the relocated Field Museum of Natural History). In 1931 the building re-opened as the Museum of Science and Industry. The only other significant building that survived the fair is the Norway pavilion, a building now preserved at a museum called "Little Norway" in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. [http://www.littlenorway.com/] The Fine Arts Building was purposely constructed to last. The other buildings at the fair were all intended to be temporary. Their facades were made not of stone, but of a mixture of plaster and hemp called "staff." Architecture critics derided the structures as "decorated sheds". The "White City," however, so impressed everyone who saw it (at least before air pollution began to darken the facades) that plans were considered to refinish the exteriors in marble or some other material. Sadly, these plans had to be abandoned in July 1894 when much of the fair grounds was destroyed in a fire. (The fire occurred at the height of the Pullman Strike; since the strikers set other fires that very week, it is possible the fire was set by disgruntled Pullman employees.) Jackson Park was eventually returned to its status as a public park, and the lagoon was reshaped to give it a more natural appearance, except for the straight-line northern end where it still laps up against the steps on the south side of the Fine Arts / Sci-and-I building. The Midway Plaisance, a park-like boulevard which extends west from Jackson Park, forms the southern boundary of the University of Chicago, which was being built as the fair was closing. The university's football team, the Maroons, were the original "Monsters of the Midway". The north side of the Museum of Science and Industry was fronted by a paved parking lot for many years. In the 1990s, an ambitious project was undertaken to build an underground garage surfaced by natural grass, thus extending the park completely around the building. McKim, Mead and White designed the Agriculture building.

Electricity at the fair

McKim, Mead and White The International Exposition was held in a building which for the first time was devoted to electrical exhibits. It was an historical moment and the beginning of a revolution, as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by providing alternating current to illuminate the Exposition. The general public observed firsthand the qualities and abilities of alternating current power. All the exhibits were from commercial enterprises. Thomas Edison, Brush, Western Electric, and Westinghouse had exhibits. General Electric Company (backed by Edison and J.P. Morgan) proposed to power the electric fair with direct current at the cost of one million dollars. Westinghouse, armed with Tesla's alternating current system, proposed to illuminate the exposition for half that price. 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 inferior direct current system to power the fair. General Electric banned the use of Edison's lamps in Westinghouse's plan, in retailiation 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. Also among the exhibits was Tesla's demonstration, most notably the "Egg of Columbus". This device explains the principles of the rotating magnetic field and his induction motor. The Egg of Columbus consisted of a polyphase field coil underneath a plate with a copper egg positioned over the top. When the sequence of coils were energized, the magnetic field arrangement inductively created a rotation on the egg and made it stand up on end (appearing to resist gravity). On August 25, Elisha Gray introduced Tesla for a delivery of a lecture on mechanical and electrical oscillators. Tesla explained his work for efficiently increasing the work at high frequency of reciprocation. As Electrical Congress members listened, Tesla delineated mechanisms which could produce oscillations of constant periods irrespective of the pressure applied and irrespective of frictional losses and loads. He continued to explain the working mean of the production of constant period electric currents (not resorting to spark gaps or breaks), and how to produce these with mechanisms which are reliable. The successful demonstration of alternating current lighting at the Exposition dispelled doubts about the usefulness of the polyphase alternating current system developed by Westinghouse and Tesla. oscillator

Other notable attractions

The World's Columbian Exposition was the first world's fair with an area for amusements which was strictly separated from the exhibition halls. This area, concentrated on Midway Plaisance, included carnival rides — among them the first Ferris Wheel, built by George Ferris. This wheel was 250 feet high and had 36 cars, each of which could accommodate 60 people. One of the cars carried a band which played whenever the wheel was in motion. Nearby, Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show performed, perpetuating the images of the American frontier which had just officially been declared closed. At the same time, historian Frederick Jackson Turner gave academic lectures reflecting on the end of the same frontier. Another popular Midway attraction was the "Street in Cairo", which included the popular exotic dancer known as Little Egypt. The Electrotachyscope of Ottomar Anschütz, which used a Geissler Tube to project the illusion of moving images was demonstrated. Louis Comfort Tiffany made his reputation with a stunning chapel he designed and built for the Exposition. This chapel has been carefully reconstructed in recent years, and can now be seen in excellent condition at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art. Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art Architect Kirtland Cutter's Idaho Building, a rustic design log construction, was a popular favorite [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=115], visited by an estimated 18 million people. [http://www.burrows.com/founders/furniture.html] The building's design and interior furnishings were a major precursor of the Arts and Crafts movement. Arts and Crafts movement The John Bull, the steam locomotive that would become the oldest surviving operable steam locomotive in the world when it ran under its own power again in 1981, was also displayed. At the time of the exposition, the locomotive was only 62 years old, having been built in 1831. However, it had already by this time become notable as the first locomotive acquisition by the Smithsonian Institution. The locomotive ran under its own power from Washington, DC, to Chicago to participate, and returned to Washington under its own power again when the exposition closed. Forty-six nations participated in the fair, including Haiti, which selected Frederick Douglass to be its coordinator. The Exposition drew nearly 26 million visitors, and left a remembered vision that can be recognized even in the Emerald City of L. Frank Baum's Oz and in Walt Disney's majestic theme parks Disneyland and Walt Disney World (his father Elias had been a construction worker on some of the buildings). Three days before the fair was scheduled to close, Chicago mayor Carter Harrison, Sr. was assassinated by a disgruntled office seeker, Eugene Patrick Prendergast. A massive closing ceremony was planned, but was canceled due to the assassination. The closing ceremony was expected to break the record the fair had already set on Independence Day for the most single-day attendance of a major event.

Famous firsts at the fair


- Aunt Jemima pancake mix
- Cracker Jack
- Cream of Wheat
- Quaker Oats
- Congress of Mathematicians, precursor to International Congress of Mathematicians
- Elongated coins
- Ferris Wheel
- Juicy Fruit gum
- Shredded Wheat
- The hamburger was introduced to the United States (others say it was invented at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis).
- The United States produced its first commemorative stamp set.
- The United States Postal Service produced its first picture postcards.
- The first exotic dancer: Little Egypt.
- United States Mint offered its first commemorative coins: a quarter, half dollar, and dollar.
- The term "midway" came into common use to define an area where park rides, entertainment and fast food booths are concentrated at parks and fairs, after the area of that type located on Chicago's Midway Plaisance at the World Columbian Exposition.
- It is a common misconception that during the competition to win the fair, editor Charles Gibson Dana of the New York Sun dubbed Chicago the "windy city" in regard to the hype of the city's promoters.

Additional Reading


- Bancroft, Hubert Howe. "The Book of the Fair: An Historical and Descriptive Presentation of the World's Science, Art and Industry, As Viewed through the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893". Bounty, New York. 1894.
- Dybwad, G. L., and Joy V. Bliss, "Annotated Bibliography: World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893". Book Stops Here, 1992. ISBN 0963161202
- Appelbaum, Stanley (1980). The Chicago World's Fair of 1893. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN 048623990X.
- Burg, David F. (1976). Chicago's White City of 1893. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0813101409.
- Larson, Erik (2003) The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. Crown; ISBN 0609608444. Readable, dramatic nonfiction account intertwines the stories of architect Daniel H. Burnham and the building of the Fair with that of serial killer H. H. Holmes.

External links


- [http://users.vnet.net/schulman/Columbian/columbian.html#TOP Interactive Guide to the World's Columbian Exposition]
- [http://fly.hiwaay.net/~shancock/fair/text/welcome.html 1893 World's Fair]
- [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/WCE/title.html The Exposition in American culture.]
- [http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/1893fair.html Photographs of the 1893 Columbian Exposition]
- [http://columbus.gl.iit.edu/ Photographs of the 1893 Columbian Exposition from Illinois Institute of Technology]
- [http://www.chicagohs.org/history/expo/map.html Interactive map of Columbian Exposition]
- [http://ca.geocities.com/macfarlanebio/Chicago1893.html Congress of Mathematicians] Category:World's Fairs Category:Chicago history Category:American architecture Category:1893

World's Fair

A World's Fair is any of various large expositions held since the mid 19th century. The official sanctioning body is the Bureau of International Expositions (usually abbreviated BIE, from the organization's name in French, Bureau International des Expositions). BIE-approved fairs are divided into a number of types: universal, and international or specialized. They usually last for between 3 and 6 months. In addition, countries can hold their own 'fair', 'exposition', or 'exhibition', without BIE endorsement. French

Universal expositions

Universal Expositions encompass universal themes that affect the full gamut of human experience, usually at a unique period of time for mankind. These Universal Expos usually have themes based on which pavilions are made to represent the country's opinion on that theme. The theme for the Expo at Lisbon (1998) was "water" and the theme for the 2005 Expo in Japan was "nature's wisdom". Universal expositions are usually held less frequently than specialized or international expositions because they are more expensive. To distinguish them from lesser fairs, they require total design of pavilion buildings from the ground up. As a result, nations compete for the most outstanding or memorable structure—recent examples include Japan, France, Morocco & Spain at Expo '92. Recent Universal Expositions include Brussels Expo '58, Seattle Expo '62, known as the Century 21 Exposition, Montreal Expo '67, San Antonio HemisFair '68, Osaka Expo '70, Knoxville, Tennessee Expo '82 New Orleans Expo '84, Brisbane Expo '88, Seville Expo '92, Lisbon Expo '98, and Hanover, Germany Expo 2000. The Expo 2005 was held at Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Sometimes pre-fabricated structures are also used to minimize costs for developing countries or for countries from a geographical block to share space (i.e. Plaza of the Americas at Seville '92). BIE has moved to sanction expos only every 5 years, starting with the 21st century; with the 1980s and 1990s overflowing with expos back to back, some see this as a means to cut down potential expenditure by participating nations. The rule may apply to all expos, or it may end up that Universal expositions will be restricted to every 5 years or so, with International / Specialized expositions in the in-between years for countries wishing to celebrate a special event. The only Universal exposition to be held without BIE approval was the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair. Because that Fair did not comply with BIE rules in place at the time, the sanctioning organization denied the Fair an "official" status. The Fair proceeded without BIE approval and turned to tourism and trade organizations to host national pavilions in lieu of official government sponsorship.

International or specialized expositions

International expositions are usually united by a common theme—such as Transportation (Vancouver Expo '86) or 'Leisure in the Age of Technology' (Brisbane Expo '88). Such themes are narrower than the worldwide scope of Universal expositions. Specialized expositions have a narrow theme, such as the International Garden Expositions, held in Osaka, Japan ( 1990) and Kunming, China (1999). Specialized and international expositions are usually smaller in scale and cheaper to run for the host committee and participating nations because the architectural fees are lower and they only have to rent the space from the host committee, usually with the pre-fabricated structure already completed. Some say this leads to better creative content as more money can be spent in this area. Specialized and international are similar in that the host organization provides the rental space to participating countries, as well as the building itself, which is usually pre-fabricated. Countries then have the option of 'adding' their own colours, design etc. to the outside of the pre-fabricated structure and filling in the inside with their own content. One example of this is China, which invariably has chosen to add a Chinese archway in the front of its pre-fabricated pavilions to symbolize the nation (Expo '88, Expo '92, Expo '93).

After the fair

The majority of the structures are temporary, dismantled at the end of the expo. A major exception is the Eiffel Tower, built for Paris' Exposition Universelle (1889). The main buildings of Expo '98, in Lisbon, were completely integrated in the city itself. The Crystal Palace, from the first World's Fair in London in 1851, chosen because it could be recycled to recoup losses, was such a success that it was moved and intended to be permanent, only to be destroyed by a fire (of its contents) in 1936. The 1876 Centennial Exposition's main building is now the Smithsonian Institution's Arts and Industries Building in Washington, DC. Other outstanding exceptions are the remains of Expo '29 in Seville, Spain where the 'Plaza de España' forms part of a large park and forecourt, and many of the pavilions have become offices for Consulate-Generals. Also the pavilions of Expo '92 in Seville had been reconverted into a technological square and a theme park. The M. H. de Young Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park was a survivor of the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition until it succumbed to a 1989 earthquake. The Palace of Fine Arts is all that remains from the 1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition. In Brussels, the Atomium still stands at the site of the 1958 exposition. The Space Needle in Seattle was the symbol of the 1962 World's Fair, and the US pavilion from that fair became the Pacific Science Center. San Antonio kept intact the Tower of the Americas, the Institute of Texan Cultures and the Convention Center from HemisFair '68. Among the structures still standing from Expo '67 in Montreal are Moshe Safdie's Habitat 67, Buckminster Fuller's American pavilion (now the Biosphère), and the French pavilion (now the Casino de Montréal). The Sunsphere remains extant from the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is housed in the last remaining building of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, which had been the Palace of Fine Arts. The intent was to make all Columbian structures permanent, but most of the structures burned, possibly the result of arson during the Pullman Strike. The World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne was constructed for the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition, and is another example. A particular case is the EUR quarter in Rome, built for a World's Fair planned for 1942, was never used for its intended purpose, because of World War II, and today hosts various offices, governmental or private, and some museums. Some World's Fair sites become parks incorporating some of the expo elements, such as:
- Nashville - Tennessee Centennial Expo
- Saint Louis - Louisiana Purchase Exposition
- San Diego - Panama-California Exposition (1915) & California Pacific International Exposition (1935)
- Montreal - Expo '67
- San Antonio - HemisFair '68
- Osaka - Expo '70
- Spokane - Expo '74
- Vancouver - Expo '86
- Brisbane - Expo '88
- Seville, Spain - Expo '92
- Daejeon (Taejŏn), South Korea - Expo '93
- Lisbon, Portugal - Expo '98. Some pavilions have been moved overseas intact; the USSR Pavilion from Expo '67 is now in Moscow and the Japan Pavilion from Expo '70 is the Asian Centre at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. Many exhibitions and rides created by Walt Disney and his WED Enterprises company for the 1964 New York World's Fair (which was held over into 1965) were moved to the world-famous Disneyland after the closing of the Fair. Many of the rides are still operating today like "it's a small world" and "The Carousel of Progress" Currently, Disney has a theme park in Orlando called EPCOT which houses what is supposed to be a permanent World's Fair. The Belgium Pavilion from the 1964 New York World's Fair was relocated to Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia.

See also


- List of world's fairs
- White Mana

External links


- [http://mohistory.org/content/fair/wf/html/ The 1904 World's Fair: Looking Back at Looking Forward]
- [http://www.expomuseum.com World's Fair website]
- [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ExpoMuseum World's Fair Discussion website]
- [http://www.nywf64.com/index.htm 1964/1965 New York World's Fair website]
- [http://www.peacethroughunderstanding.com/ 1964/1965 NY World's Fair discussion]
- [http://www.glasgow1938.com Glasgow 1938]
- [http://www.cityclicker.net/chicfair/index.html 1933/1934 Chicago World's Fair website]
- [http://www.expotoronto.ca/ A website for the Expo Toronto 2015 Bid] ja:国際博覧会

1893

1893 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar).

Events


- January 1 - Japan accepts the Gregorian calendar
- January 2 - Introduction by Webb C. Ball of the General Railroad Timepiece Standards in North America: Railroad chronometers
- January 13 - The Independent Labour Party of the UK has its first meeting.
- January 17 - Intervention by the U.S. Marines in Hawaii, resulting in overthrow of government of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii
- January 21 - First "performance" of the Cherry sisters in Marion, Iowa. Their neighbors are uncritical and the sisters decide to launch a tour
- February 1 - Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio (West Orange, New Jersey).
- February 21 - Thomas Edison receives two U.S. patents. The first is for a "Cut Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps" and another for a "Stop Device" (No. 491,992-3). Also No. 492,150 for "Process of Coating Conductors for Incandescent Lamps."
- February 23 - Rudolf Diesel receives a patent for the diesel engine
- March 4 - End of term for President of the United States Benjamin Harrison. He is succeeded by Stephen Grover Cleveland.
- March 10 - Côte d'Ivoire becomes a French colony
- March 20 - In Belgium, Adam Worth is sentenced for seven year for robbery (he is released 1897)
- April 8 - First recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania between the Geneva College Covenanters and the New Brighton YMCA.
- May 1 - The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, opens to the public in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The first United States commemorative postage stamps were issued for the Exposition.
- May 5 - Panic of 1893: Crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression.
- May 9 - First public demonstration of Edison's 1 1/2" system of Kinetoscope at the Brooklyn Institute.
- June 6 - Marriage of Prince George, Duke of York and Mary of Teck.
- June 7 Gandhi's first act of civil disobedience.
- June 22 - Flagship Victoria of the British Mediterranean Fleet collides with Camperdown and sinks in 10 minutes - vice-admiral Sir George Tryon goes down with it
- July 6 - The small town of Pomeroy, Iowa was nearly destroyed by a tornado. Seventy-one people were killed and two hundred were injured.
- July 11 - Kokichi Mikimoto develops the method to achieve cultured pearls.
- July 12 - Frederick Jackson Turner gives his famous lecture entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" before the American Historical Association in Chicago
- June 20 - Lizzie Borden acquitted of murder of her father and stepmother
- June 22 – Flagship HMS Victoria of the British Mediterranean Fleet collides with HMS Camperdown and sinks in 10 minutes - vice-admiral Sir George Tryon goes down with it
- August 27 - The Sea Islands Hurricane hits Savannah, Charleston and the Sea Islands; 1000-2000 dead.
- September 11 - Opening meeting of the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
- September 19 - Russian ironclad Rusalka disappears in a storm en route from Tallinn to Helsinki (hulk found July 2003 off Helsinki)
- September 27 - Closing meeting of the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
- October 10 - First car number plates in Paris, France
- October 30 - The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World Columbian Exposition, closes.
- November 7 - Colorado women are granted the right to vote.

Exact month/day of event unknown


- New Zealand becomes first country in the world to grant women the vote.
- American Council on Alcohol Problems established.
- Global financial panic (Panic of 1893)
- Physicist Wilhelm Wien composes Wien's Law
- France conquers Vietnam.
- General strike in Belgium
- American Temperance University opened.
- Milbank Penitentiary in Britain demolished
- US President Cleveland operated on in secret
- The Wengernalpbahn in Wengen, Switzerland (Canton of Bern) is opened.
- Athletic Club Královské Vinohrady is founded. Later the team was renamed to Sparta Prague
- Anti-Saloon League established in U.S. to promote temperance movement
- Committee of Fifty for the Study of the Liquor Problem established.

Births


- January 5 - Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru (d. 1952)
- January 12 - Hermann Göring, Nazi official (d. 1946)
- January 12 - Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi official (d. 1946)
- January 15 - Ivor Novello, Welsh actor and musician (d. 1951)
- January 22 - Conrad Veidt, German actor (d. 1943)
- February 3 - Gaston Julia, French mathematician (d. 1978)
- February 10 - Jimmy Durante, American actor, singer, and comedian (d. 1980)
- February 12 - Omar Bradley, American general (d. 1981)
- February 16 - Katharine Cornell, American actress (d. 1974)
- February 21 - Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist (d. 1987)
- March 1 - Mercedes de Acosta, American poet, playwright, costume designer, and socialite (d. 1968)
- March 3 - Beatrice Wood, American artist and ceramicist (d. 1998)
- March 18 - Wilfred Owen, English soldier and poet (d. 1918)
- April 3 - Leslie Howard, English actor (d. 1943)
- April 9 - Victor Gollancz, British publisher (d. 1967)
- April 12 - Robert Harron, American actor (d. 1920)
- April 23 - Allen Dulles, American Central Intelligence Agency director (d. 1969)
- April 29 - Harold C. Urey, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
- May 3 - Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer and public benefactor (d. 1975)
- May 23 - Ulysses S. Grant IV, American geologist and paleontologist (d. 1977)
- June 24 - Roy Oliver Disney, brother and business partner of Walter Elias Disney (d. 1971)
- July 25 - Dorothy Dickson, American-born actress and socialite (d. 1995)
- June 26 - Big Bill Broonzy, American blues singer and composer (d. 1958)
- July 3 - Mississippi John Hurt, American musician (d. 1966)
- July 9 - George Geary, English cricketer (d. 1981)
- August 6 - Wright Patman, American politician (d. 1976)
- August 15 - Leslie Comrie, New Zealand astronomer and computing pioneer (d. 1950)
- August 22 - Dorothy Parker, American writer (d. 1967)
- August 30 - Huey Long, Louisiana governor and senator (d. 1935)
- September 13 - Larry Shields, American musician (d. 1953)
- September 16 - Albert Szent-Györgyi, Hungarian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
- October 1 - Marianne Brandt, German industrial designer (d. 1983)
- October 9 - Mário de Andrade, Brazilian writer and photographer (d. 1945)
- October 14 - Lillian Gish, American actress (d. 1993)
- October 15 - King Carol II of Romania (d. 1953)
- October 18 - Georges Ohsawa, Japanese founder of Macrobiotics (d. 1966)
- November 3 - Edward Adelbert Doisy, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1986)
- November 8 - Clarence Williams, American jazz musician (d. 1965)
- December 24 - Ruth Chatterton, American actress (d. 1961)
- December 26 - Mao Zedong, Chinese leader (d. 1976)

Exact month/day of birth unknown


- Clement Martyn Doke, South African linguist (d. 1980)
- Berthold Bartosch, Bohemian animator (d. 1968)

Deaths


- January 2 - John Obadiah Westwood, British entomologist
- January 7 - Jožef Stefan, Slovenian physicist, mathematician, and poet (b. 1835)
- January 17 - Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States
- January 23 - Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, U.S. Supreme Court justice
- February 1 - George Henry Sanderson, Mayor of San Francisco
- February 20 - P.G.T. Beauregard, American Confederate general
- March 30 - Jane Sym-Mackenzie, First Lady of Canada
- June 21 - Amasa Leland Stanford, Governor of California
- June 23 - Sir Theophilus Shepstone, South African statesman (b. 1817)
- October 10 - Lip Pike, baseball player
- October 30 - Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott, Canadian politician

Marriages


- January 7 - Mary Gish & James Leigh de Guiche
- April 20 - King Ferdinand & Maria Louisa de Bourbon
- May 2 - Marie Eve & August Strindberg
- May 30 - Israël Querido & Janet Sjouwerman
- July 6 - George V & Queen Mary
- December 12 - Rupert Hughes & Agnes Wheeler Hedge Category:1893 ko:1893년 ms:1893 simple:1893 th:พ.ศ. 2436

NEW WORLD

:New World is also a 1990 album by Kelly Family. New World is an album by Do As Infinity, released 2001.

Tracklist

# new world # GURUGURU # Desire # We Are. # Snail # 永遠 (Eien) (Eternity) # rumble fish # Holiday # 135 # Wings 510 # SUMMER DAYS # Yesterday & Today (Strings Orchestral Version) Category:2001 albums



St. Louis, Missouri

:This article is about the city in Missouri. For other uses of Saint Louis, see Saint Louis. Saint Louis (pronounced in English, Image:ltspkr.png in French), frequently spelled St. Louis, encompasses an independent city in the American state of Missouri (the "City of Saint Louis") and its metropolitan area ("Greater Saint Louis"). The city, which is named after Louis IX of France, is adjacent to, but not a part of, Saint Louis County, Missouri. The Saint Louis metropolitan area, which includes counties in both Missouri and Illinois, is the 19th largest in the United States, with a total population of 2,698,672 as of the 2000 census. While the population of the metropolitan area has been increasing, the population of the City of Saint Louis (348,189) has been declining since the 1950s, as many have moved to the many suburbs in Saint Louis County, or to other parts of the metropolitan area. This exodus to the suburbs appears to have finally stopped at the beginning of this century thanks to recent attempts to revitalize the downtown area, and the city in general. The city has several common nicknames, including the, "Gateway City", "Gateway to the West", and "Mound City." St. Louis is also sometimes called "Saint Louie", "River City," and "Baseball City USA."

History

nickname statue of the city's namesake on horseback, was widely used as a symbol of the city before construction of the Arch.]] Prior to the arrival of French explorers in 1763 the area that would become Saint Louis was a major center of the Mississippian mound builders. The presence of numerous mounds, now almost all destroyed, earned the later city the nickname of "Mound City". European exploration of the area had begun nearly a century earlier. Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette, both French, traveled through the Mississippi River valley in 1673, and five years later, La Salle claimed the entire valley for France. He called it "Louisiana" after King Louis XIV; the French also called their region "Illinois Country". In 1699, a settlement was established across the river from what is now Saint Louis, at Cahokia. Other early settlements were downriver at Kaskaskia, Illinois, Prairie du Pont, Fort de Chartres, and Sainte Genevieve. In 1703, Catholic priests established a small mission at what is now St. Louis. The mission was later moved across the Mississippi, but the small river at the site (now a channelized drainage ditch near the southern boundary of the City of Saint Louis) still bears the name River Des Peres (River of the Fathers). In 1763, Pierre Laclède, his 13-year-old stepson Auguste Chouteau, and a small band of men traveled up the Mississippi from New Orleans. In November, they landed a few miles downstream of the river's confluence with the Missouri River at a site where wooded limestone bluffs rose 40 feet above the river. The men returned to Fort de Chartres for the winter, but in February, LaClede sent Chouteau and 30 men to begin construction. The settlement was established on February 15, 1764. The settlement began to grow quickly after word arrived that the 1763 Treaty of Paris had given England all the land east of the Mississippi. Frenchmen who had settled to the river's east moved across the water to "Laclede's Village". Other early settlements were established nearby at Saint Charles, Carondelet (now a part of the city of Saint Louis), Saint Ferdinand (now Florissant), and Portage des Sioux. From 1766 to 1768, St. Louis was governed by the French lieutenant governor, Louis Saint Ange de Bellerive. After 1768, St. Louis was governed by a series of Spanish governors, whose administration continued even after Louisiana was secretly returned to France in 1800 by the Treaty of San Ildefonso. The town's population was then about a thousand. Saint Louis was acquired from France by the United States under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803, as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The transfer of power from Spain was made official in a ceremony called "Three Flags Day". On March 8, 1804, the Spanish flag was lowered and the French one raised. On March 10, the French flag was replaced by the United States flag. The Lewis and Clark Expedition left the Saint Louis area in May 1804, reached the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1805, and returned on Sept. 23, 1806. Many other explorers, settlers, and trappers (such as Ashley's Hundred) would later take a similar route to the West. The steamboat era began in Saint Louis on July 27, 1817, with the arrival of the Zebulon M. Pike. Rapids north of the city made Saint Louis the northernmost navigable port for many large boats, and Pike and her sisters soon transformed St. Louis into a bustling boomtown, commercial center, and inland port. By the 1850s, Saint Louis had become the largest U.S. city west of Pittsburgh, and the second-largest port in the country, with a commercial tonnage exceeded only by New York. Missouri became a state in 1820. Saint Louis was incorporated as a city on December 9, 1822. A U.S. arsenal was constructed at Saint Louis in 1827. Immigrants flooded into Saint Louis after 1840, particularly from Germany, Bohemia and Ireland, the latter driven by an Old World potato famine. The population of Saint Louis grew from fewer than 20,000 in 1840, to 77,860 in 1850, to just over 160,000 by 1860. Two disasters occurred in 1849: a cholera epidemic killed nearly one-tenth of the population, and a fire destroyed numerous steamboats and a large portion of the city. In the first half of the 19th century, a second channel developed in the Mississippi River at Saint Louis. An island ("Bloody Island") formed between the two channels, and a smaller island ("Duncan's Island") developed below Saint Louis. It was feared that the levee at St. Louis might be left high and dry, and federal assistance was sought and obtained. Under the supervision of Robert E. Lee, levees were constructed on the Illinois side to direct water toward the Missouri side and eliminate the second channel. Bloody Island was joined to the land on the Illinois side, and Duncan's Island was washed away. Militarily, the Civil War (1861-1865) barely touched St. Louis; the area saw only a few skirmishes in which Union forces prevailed. But the war shut down trade with the South, devastating the city's economy. Missouri was nominally a slave state, but its economy did not depend on slavery, and it never seceded from the Union. The arsenal at Saint Louis was used during the war to construct ironclad ships for the Union. On July 4, 1876 the City of Saint Louis voted to remove itself from Saint Louis County and become Saint Louis City and Saint Louis County. At that time the County was primarily rural and sparsely populated, and the fast-growing City did not want to spend their tax dollars on infastructure and services for the inefficent county. This decision would gravely come back to haunt the City as white flight with suburban development and population migration outside the City limits would cost the City millions of lost tax dollars and contribute to the City's deterioration. Saint Louis is one of several cities that claims to have the world's first skyscraper. The Wainwright Building, a 10-story structure designed by Louis Sullivan and built in 1892, still stands at Chestnut and Seventh Streets and is today used by the State of Missouri as a government office building. Nikola Tesla made the first public demonstration of radio communication here in 1893. Addressing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the National Electric Light Association, he described and demonstrated in detail the principles of radio communication. The apparatus that he used contained all the elements that were incorporated into radio systems before the development of the vacuum tube. In 1896, one of the deadliest and most destructive tornadoes in U.S. history struck St. Louis and East St. Louis. The confirmed death toll is 255, with some estimates above 400, and injuries over 1,000. It left a mile wide continuous swath of destroyed homes, factories, mills, saloons, hospitals, schools, parks, churches, and railroad yards. Damages adjusted for inflation (1997 USD) make it the costliest tornado in U.S. history at an estimated $2.9 billion. Several other tornadoes have hit the city making it the worst tornado afflicted large city in the U.S.; with the most deadly and destructive occurring in 1871 (9 killed), 1890 (4 killed), 1904 (3 killed, 100 injured), 1927 (79 killed, 550 injured), and 1959 (21 killed, 345 injured). In 1904, the city hosted the World's Fair and the Olympic Games, making the United States the first English-speaking country to host the Olympics. Citizens of St. Louis still look back fondly on the events of 1904; there were several events held in 2004 to commemorate the centennial. The uranium used in the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb was refined in Saint Louis by Mallinckrodt Chemical Co., starting in 1942. The Pruitt-Igoe housing project, built in 1955 and demolished in 1972, is one of the most infamous failures of urban planning. (The buildings were the first major work by Minoru Yamasaki, who later designed the World Trade Center.)

Downtown Redevelopment

There is a lot of construction going on in downtown St. Louis. There is The Bottle District which is an entertainment district that will open in spring 2007 that will be located north of the Edward Jones Dome. Also the St. Louis Cardinals new ballpark will open next year with a Ballpark Village to follow where the ballpark once stood. Additionally, for several years the Washington Loft District has been gentrifying an expanding corridor along Washington Street from the Edwards Jones Dome extending westward almost two dozen blocks. Rehabilitation of other downtown areas is proposed.

Geography

Washington Loft District St. Louis is located at (38.648056, -90.212222). The city lies along the western banks of the Mississippi River, just south of the Missouri-Mississippi confluence. Much of the area is a gently rolling prairie with low hills and broad, shallow valleys. Both the Mississippi River and the Missouri River have cut large valleys with wide flood plains. Limestone underlies much of the area and there are some sinkholes and caves, although most of the caves have been sealed shut. The western and northern boundaries of Saint Louis County are defined by the Missouri River. Near the southern boundary of Saint Louis County is the Meramec River. At the southern boundary of the city of Saint Louis (separating it from the county) is the River des Peres, virtually the only river or stream within the city limits that is not entirely underground. Most of River des Peres was either channelized or put underground in the 1920s and early 1930s. The lower section of the river was the site of some of the worst flooding of the Great Flood of 1993. Near the central, western boundary of the city is Forest Park, site of the 1904 World's fair, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 or, as it is commonly known, the Saint Louis World's Fair, and the 1904 Summer Olympics, the first Olympic Games held in North America. At the time, Saint Louis was the fourth most populous city in the United States. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 171.3 km² (66.2 mi²). 160.4 km² (61.9 mi²) of it is land and 11.0 km² (4.2 mi² or 6.39%) of it is water.

Metropolitan statistical area

mi² The Saint Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area, the 18th largest in the United States, has a total population of 2,698,672). This area includes Saint Louis County (1,016,315), the independent City of Saint Louis (348,189), the Missouri counties of Saint Charles (283,883), Jefferson (198,099), Franklin (93,807), Lincoln (38,944) and Warren (24,525), and the Illinois counties of Madison (258,941), Saint Clair (256,082), Clinton (35,535), Monroe (27,619) and Jersey (21,668).

Cityscape

The city is divided into 81 neighborhoods. The divisions have no legal standing, although some neighborhood associations administer grants or hold veto power over historic-district development. Nevertheless, the social and political influence of neighborhood identity is profound. Some hold avenues of massive stone edifices built as palaces for heads of state visiting the 1904 World's Fair. Others offer tidy working-class bungalows, hip loft districts, or areas hard-hit by social problems and unemployment. Many of them have retained - quite consciously and deliberately - a camaraderie that is missing from many American towns today. Among the best-known, architecturally significant, or well-visited neighborhoods are Downtown St. Louis, Midtown St. Louis, Benton Park, Carondelet, the Central West End, Clayton/Tamm (Dogtown), Dutchtown South, Forest Park Southeast, Grand Center, The Hill, Lafayette Square, Shaw (home to the Missouri Botanical Garden and named after the Garden's founder, Henry Shaw), Soulard (home of the second-largest Mardi Gras festival in the nation), TowerGrove East and Tower Grove South, and Wydown/Skinker.

People and culture

Social changes in the twentieth century influenced radically the sorts of people who exist in Saint Louis now. From 1810, the date of the first Federal census, to 1880, the population totals include with the city of Saint Louis the population of Saint Louis County, which in 1880 was separately enumerated at 31, 888 people. In 1910, 687, 029 people lived in the city. 125, 706 foreign-born people were residents in 1910. 47,765 of those persons were natives of the German Empire. In 1910, 11.3 per cent of the foreign-born people were of Irish nativity, 4.1 per cent of English, 12.3 of Russian, 6 of Italian, and 8.8 of Austrian. 43,960 African Americans composed 6.4 per cent of the total population. Like other large American cities, St. Louis experienced a large population shift to the suburbs in the twentieth century, particularly in the years following the Second World War. Populations of city and county: 1810, 5,667; 1820, 10,049; 1830, 14,145; 1840, 35,979; 1850, 104,978; 1860, 190,524; 1870, 351,189. Populations of the town itself: in 1799, 925; 1810, 1,400; 1820, 4,000; 1830, 4,977; 1840, 16,469; 1850, 77,860; 1860, 170,773; 1870, 310,864; 1880, 350,518; 1900, 575,238; 1910, 687,029; 1920, 772, 897; 1940, 816,048.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 348,189 people, 147,076 households, and 76,920 families residing in the city. The population density is 2,171.1/km² (5,622.9/mi²). There are 176,354 housing units at an average density of 1,099.7/km² (2,847.9/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 51.20% African American, 43.85% White, 1.98% Asian, 0.27% Native American, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.80% from other races, and 1.88% from two or more races. 2.02% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. Historically, North Saint Louis City has been primarily African American while South Saint Louis City has been primarily White. This has changed in recent years as large portions of North Saint Louis City have been depopulated, with African-American residents moving either south or to surrounding counties. There are 147,076 households, out of which 25.4% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 26.2% are married couples living together, 21.3% have a female householder with no husband present, and 47.7% are non-families. 40.3% of all households are made up of individuals and 12.9% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.30 and the average family size is 3.19. In the city the population is spread out with 25.7% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 30.9% from 25 to 44, 19.1% from 45 to 64, and 13.7% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 34 years. For every 100 females there are 88.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 84.2 males. The median income for a household in the city is $27,156, and the median income for a family is $32,585. Males have a median income of $30,106 versus $24,987 for females. The per capita income for the city is $16,108. 24.6% of the population and 20.8% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 36.4% of those under the age of 18 and 17.4% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

Cuisine


- Anheuser-Busch beers
- Fried-brain sandwiches
- Gooey butter cake
- Missouri wine
- Pork steaks
- Provel cheese
- Saint Louis-style pizza, exemplified by regional chain Imo's Pizza
- Schlafly beers
- Ted Drewes Frozen Custard
- Toasted ravioli
- Vess soda
- St. Paul sandwiches
- Saint Louis-style barbecue, often featuring spare ribs and thin, tangy tomato-based barbecue sauce
- Slingers

Museums and other points of interest

Slingers There are several museums and attractions in the city. The City Museum offers a variety of interesting exhibits, including several large caves and a huge outdoor playground. It also serves as a meeting point for Saint Louis' young arts scene. The Eugene Field House, located in downtown Saint Louis, is a museum dedicated to the distinguished children's author. The Missouri Historical Society presents exhibits and programs on a variety of topics including the 1904 World's Fair, and a comprehensive exhibit on Lewis and Clark's voyage exploring the Louisiana Purchase. The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra plays at Powell Symphony Hall. Leonard Slatkin is one of the former conductors. The Fox Theatre, originally one of many movie theatres along Grand Boulevard, is now a newly restored theatre featuring a Byzantine facade and Oriental decor. The Fox Theatre presents a Broadway Series in addition to concerts. There are several notable churches in the city, including the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, a large Roman Catholic cathedral designed in the Byzantine and Romanesque styles. The interior is decorated with lovely mosaics, the largest mosaic collection in the world. The Basilica of St. Louis, King of France (1834), also known as the "Old Cathedral", is the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River. The Old Cathedral is located adjacent to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. The Hill is an historically Italian neighborhood where many of the area's best Italian restaurants can be found. The Hill was the home of Yogi Berra and many other noted baseball players. The International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame is also located by Busch Stadium in downtown Saint Louis. Laclede's Landing, located on the Mississippi Riverfront directly north of the historic Eads Bridge, is popular for its restaurants and nightclubs. St. Louis also possesses several distinct examples of 18th and 19th century architecture, such as the Soulard Market district (1779-1842), the Chatillon-de Menil House (1848), the Bellefontaine Cemetery (1850), the Robert G. Campbell House (1852), the Old Courthouse (1845-62), the original Anheuser-Busch Brewery (1860), and two of Louis Sullivan's early skyscrapers, the Wainwright Building (1890-91) and the Union Trust Building. There are also several notable museums in surrounding cities. The Delmar Loop, located in University City, just west of the Saint Louis city line, is a popular entertainment, cultural and restaurant district. The Butterfly House is located in western St. Louis County. The Museum of Transportation is located in Kirkwood, a suburb in southwestern St. Louis County. Six Flags St. Louis, known as, "Six Flags over Mid-America," when it opened in 1971, is an amusement park located in Eureka, Missouri, in the far west of St. Louis County. Saint Charles, is the seat of St. Charles County and first capital of the state of Missouri, and is the location from which the Lewis and Clark Expedition began. It also has a downtown historic district with many small craft shops. Cahokia Mounds, located near Collinsville, Illinois, holds the ruins of a city of the ancient Mississippian aboriginal culture. Similar mounds within Saint Louis, used as construction fill in the 1800s, gave the city one of its nicknames. Magic House, children's hands on exploration museum, located in Kirkwood. One of the top rated family attractions in the US. Worldways Children's museum, an international children's cultural museum. Located in Kirkwood off Kirkwood Road.

Media

The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch is the region's major daily newspaper. Founded by Joseph Pulitzer in the 1800s, the paper was owned by Pulitzer Publishing until 2005, when the company was acquired by Lee Enterprises. The company also owns the Suburban Journals, a collection of local newspapers. The daily [http://www.belleville.com/ Belleville News Democrat], published in Belleville, Illinois, serves many Illinois communities in the St. Louis Metro Area. The St. Louis Business Journal, published weekly on Fridays, covers the region's business news. In 1900, St. Louis had at least five daily newspapers: the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the St. Louis Republic in the morning, and the Post-Dispatch and Star-Chronicle in the afternoon, as well as the German-language Westlische Post. One by one, these papers folded or consolidated. The Post-Dispatch bought out its remaining afternoon competitor, the Star-Times, in 1951. Until the mid-1980s, the morning Globe-Democrat, which was editorially more conservative than the Post-Dispatch, served as the Post's main rival. Although the Post-Dispatch and the Globe-Democrat maintained a joint-operating agreement for years, the Globe-Democrat folded shortly after the Post-Dispatch switched from afternoon to morning publication. The city's main alternative weekly publications include the Evening Whirl, and the [http://www.riverfronttimes.com/ Riverfront Times]. African-American weeklies include the St. Louis Argus (est. 1912), the Saint Louis American (est. 1928), and the St. Louis Sentinel (est. 1969). A variety of glossy monthly and quarterly publications cover topics such as local history, cuisine, and lifestyles. St. Louis is also home to the last remaining metropolitan journalism review, the [http://www.stljr.org/ St. Louis Journalism Review], based at Webster University in the suburb of Webster Groves, Missouri. The St. Louis metro area is served by a wide variety of local television stations, and is the twenty-first largest designated market area (DMA) in the U.S., with 1,222,380 homes (1.11% of the total U.S.). The major network television affiliates are KMOV 4 (CBS), KDNL 30 (ABC), KSDK 5 (National Broadcasting Company), KTVI 2 (Fox Broadcasting Company), KPLR 11 (WB), and WRBU 46 (UPN). There is also a PBS station at KETC 9. The region's radio airwaves offer a variety of locally produced programming. KMOX (1120 AM), which pioneered the call-in talk radio format in the 1960s, retains significant regional influence due to its 50,000-watt, clear-channel signal, its sports lineup, and an unusually active newsroom operation. Public radio station KWMU (90.7 FM), an NPR affiliate, also provides extensive, locally produced programming treating social issues, politics, and the arts. St. Louis is one of only a few U.S. cities to have its own independent community radio station, KDHX (88.1 FM), which features a wide range of music and talk from local residents. Washington University's college radio station, KWUR (90.3 FM), also provides community broadcasting and an eclectic mix of underground music.

Music

St. Louis has long been associated with ragtime, jazz and blues. Early rock and roll singer/guitarist Chuck Berry is a native St. Louisan and continues to perform there several times a year. Soul music artists Ike Turner and Tina Turner and jazz innovator Miles Davis began their careers in nearby East St. Louis, Illinois. In the 1990's, the metro area produced several prominent alt-country artists, including Uncle Tupelo, a Belleville, Illinois trio often considered the originators of the style, and The Bottle Rockets. More recently, the rise of Nelly, The Saint Lunatics, Murphy Lee, Chingy, J-Kwon and other musicians have made it one of the centers of rap and hip-hop, often mentioned side-by-side with New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Detroit.

Parks and outdoor attractions

Detroit The city operates 105 parks that serve as gathering spots for neighbors to meet, and contains playgrounds, areas for summer concerts, picnics, baseball games, tennis courts, and lakes. Forest Park, located on the western edge of the central corridor of the City of St. Louis, is one of the largest urban parks in the world, outsizing Central Park in New York City by 500 acres. It offers many of Saint Louis' most popular attractions: the free Saint Louis Zoological Park, the Municipal Theatre (also known as, "The Muny," the largest and oldest outdoor musical theatre in the United States), the Saint Louis Science Center and Observatory (with its architecturally distinctive McDonnell Planetarium), the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Missouri History Museum, and, of course, plenty of lakes and scenic, open areas. Forest Park completed a multimillion dollar renovation in 2004 for the centennial of the St. Louis World's Fair. The Missouri Botanical Garden, also known as "Shaw's Garden", is one of the world's leading botanical research centers. It possesses a beautiful collection of flowery plants, shrubs, and trees, and includes the Japanese Garden, which features a lake filled with koi and gravel designs, the woodsy English Garden, the Japanese Garden, the Home Gardening Center, a rose garden, the climate-controlled dome Climatron, as well as many other scenic gardens. Immediately south of the Missouri Botanical Garden is Tower Grove Park, a gift to the City by Henry Shaw. The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, better known as the Gateway Arch, is perhaps the most recognizable structure of the city. It is located near the riverfront in downtown Saint Louis, and was designed by noted architect Eero Saarinen. The Arch is the centerpiece of a national park that also includes the nearby Old Courthouse, where the famous Dred Scott case was tried. This area is also the location of the annual July 4th festival, Fair Saint Louis, widely regarded as America's largest birthday celebration.

Sports

Club Sport League Venue Logo
Major League Baseball National League Busch Stadium Busch Stadium
St. Louis Rams Football National Football League : NFC Edward Jones Dome Edward Jones Dome
St. Louis Blues Ice Hockey National Hockey League Savvis Center Savvis Center
St. Louis Steamers Soccer Major Indoor Soccer League Savvis Center Savvis Center
---- Enthusiastic and knowledgeable fans give the city a reputation as, "a top-notch sports town" and being dubbed as, "Baseball City USA." The Sporting News rated St. Louis the nation's, "Best Sports City." Although the city has or had professional football, hockey, basketball teams, it is baseball that is undeniably the epicenter of the city's sporting life. The St. Louis Cardinals, one of the oldest franchises in Major League Baseball, have accumulated nine World Series titles since 1892, second only to the New York Yankees. (The 2005 baseball season will be the last played at historic Busch Stadium. A new stadium, which will have the same name, is currently under construction, with views of the Saint Louis skyline and the Gateway Arch.) The city of St. Louis has earned 12 professional sports championships. As mentioned earlier the St. Louis Cardinals have won 9 World Series Championships with one of the championships played against the old cross-city rival the St. Louis Browns. The St. Louis Rams have won one Super Bowl Championship, and the St. Louis Hawks gave the city its lone NBA Championship. On top of that the St. Louis Blues hold the record for most consecutive playoff appearances, in all of sports, with 26 straight. The Blues have also made 3 trips to the Stanley Cup Finals winning none. The Savvis Center will host the 2007 Frozen Four college ice hockey tournament on April 5 and April 7, 2007. The Savvis Center also hosts the annual "Braggin' Rights" game, a men's college basketball rivalry game between Illinois and Missouri. St. Louis is roughly equidistant from the two campuses. In March 2005, the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis hosted the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship Final Four. In April 2009, Edward Jones Dome will host the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship Final Four. Gateway International Raceway hosts NASCAR events in nearby Madison, Illinois. There are also several minor league teams in the area. The Gateway Grizzlies (Minor League Baseball) of the Frontier League, which plays at GMC Stadium across the river in Sauget, Illinois. The River City Rascals (Minor League Baseball) also of the Frontier League, play at T.R. Hughes Stadium in nearby O'Fallon, Missouri. The Missouri River Otters (United Hockey League) play at Family Arena in St. Charles, Missouri. The River City Rage are an Arena Football team that play in the National Indoor Football League at Family Arena. The St. Louis Flight are a basketball team that play in the newly reincarnated American Basketball Association, also at Family Arena.

Economy

Saint Louis punches above its weight as a center for corporate headquarters. Beer commercials have made the city well known as the home of Anheuser-Busch Breweries. Two local brokerages, A.G. Edwards and Edward Jones, have grown into dominant players on America's financial landscape. It is also the site for the headquarters of Energizer, the battery company. Neighboring suburbs host Monsanto, formerly a chemical company and now a leader in genetically modified crops, and Solutia, the former Monsanto chemical division that was spun off as a separate company in 1997. Hardee's corporate headquarters lies in the metro area. Enterprise Rent-A-Car is headquartered in Clayton. Emerson Electric is headquartered in the north side of St. Louis. However, in recent years, many longtime corporate pillars have left St. Louis. Saint Louis was the corporate headquarters of McDonnell-Douglas prior to its 1997 merger with Boeing. Upon the merger, the area became the headquarters for Boeing's $27 billion-per-year Integrated Defense Systems division and its company-wide Phantom Works R&D operation. Locally, Boeing manufactures the F/A-18 Super Hornet and JDAM smart bombs, and has developed — at times secretly — several unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs). However, when Boeing relocated its corporate headquarters from Seattle, Washington in 2001, it moved to Chicago, Illinois — Saint Louis was not one of the final candidates. From 1994 until its acquisition in 2000 by Tyco International, another chemical company, Mallinckrodt, was headquartered in Saint Louis County. Many of the former Mallinckrodt facilities are still in operation by Tyco in the Saint Louis suburb of Hazelwood, Missouri. Saint Louis was the corporate headquarters for animal feed and human-food maker Ralston Purina. After divesting all of its businesses except the pet food division, Nestle S.A., the world's largest food company acquired it in 2001. Several of the divested business still remain in St. Louis including Energizer, Ralcorp and Protein Technologies, Inc. n/k/a Solae. Trans World Airlines (acquired by American Airlines, which then dismantled TWA's St. Louis hub), telecommunications company SBC (moved to San Antonio), and military contractor General Dynamics (moved to Washington, D.C.). All major St. Louis banks have been purchased by out-of-town banks. The city retains a Federal Reserve Bank. Saint Louis remains home to railway car plants; two DaimlerChrysler plants in the nearby suburb of Fenton, where minivans and pickup trucks are built; a General Motors plant in suburban Wentzville; and a Ford Motor Company plant in Hazelwood, where SUVs are built. The region has built up a formidable health care industry. This is dominated by BJC HealthCare, which operates Barnes-Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children's Hospital, plus eleven others. BJC benefits from a symbiotic relationship with Washington University's School of Medicine, which is a major center of medical research. Other major players include SSM Health Care, St. John's Mercy, and the Tenet Healthcare Corporation chain. St. Louis is also home to two companies that produce radiation therapy planning software, CMS, Inc. and Multidata Systems International. Although local housing costs have risen in recent years, they are still significantly below the national average, and are a revelation to new arrivals from the coasts. From the mid-1990s onward, the City of St. Louis itself has seen a major surge in housing rehabilitation as well as new construction on cleared sites. As a rule, other costs of living also are at or below the national average. Wages tend to reflect these facts, likewise being at or slightly below the average.

Colleges and universities

Saint Louis and its surrounding area are the home of several major universities, colleges, and higher education facilities:
- Saint Louis University, the oldest university west of the Mississippi River
- Parks College of Engineering, Aviation, and Technology A division of SLU.
- Washington University in St. Louis
- Webster University
- University of Missouri - St. Louis
- Concordia Seminary of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
- Fontbonne University
- Eden Seminary
-