Video | World's Fair | Chicago Stories

A mere two decades after a devastating fire leveled much of the city, Chicago prevailed in a fierce competition to host a global event: The World’s Columbian Exposition. Journey back to that magical “White City” – exploring the immense challenges in building it and the many innovations that are still a part of our daily lives. Audio-narrated descriptions are available.

Daniel Burnham, John Wellborn Root, and Frederick Law Olmsted are hired to design a dazzling – but temporary – White City in Jackson Park.

A man with a questionable past moves to Chicago and assumes the alias H.H. Holmes. He would become one of Chicago’s most infamous figures.

Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells hand out a pamphlet that protests the exclusion of African American contributions from the World’s Fair.

The Midway Plaisance, a mile-long strip of land just west of Jackson Park, offered a different kind of energy at the World’s Fair. On the Midway, entertainment was the name of the game.

What was it like to visit the White City? Journey back with us as we imagine what it would have been like to explore the grounds at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.