By Christina B. Farnsworth
All photos courtesy of the Museum of
Science and Industry

The Museum of Science and Industry, one of "The Seven Wonders of Chicago," preserves the last vestiges of Chicago's legendary 1893 Columbian Exposition. Its history is a soap opera of pride, peril and redemption.

The "City of Big Shoulders" was a fierce competitor in the battle to host the United State's 1893 Exposition, celebrating the 400th anniversary of "Columbus' Discovery of the New World." Chicago and its own local barons beat out New York, Washington, D.C., and others.

The team transformed a swamp seven miles south of Chicago's Loop, into the famed "White City." They drained and sculpted land, created canals, lagoons and fountains. Famous architects, primarily from the East Coast (locals such as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright felt somewhat snubbed), designed buildings constructed of easily molded "staff," a mix of plaster and hemp fiber. Chicagoans turned to landscape experts Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux to create a garden intended to outlive the Exposition and rival New York's Central Park. And project architect and planner Daniel H. Burnham became famous for his Chicago plan and the phrase, "Make no little plans."

The "White City's" color was not by design, but from necessity. The staff was expected to be colorfully painted and embellished, but this method proved unequal to Chicago's harsh lakefront weather. Months of experimentation lead to the invention of the world's first large-scale airless paint sprayer. A team of four workers cruised the grounds blasting barrels of white, lead, oil paint, "refreshing" every building in sight.

Today's Museum of Science and Industry was the Exposition's "Palace of Fine Arts," conceived as its only permanent building. It represented an ambitious world-class city and cost $541,795. To convince artists and collectors that massive displays of the finest art treasures were safe, New York-based architect Charles B. Atwood created an "externally fireproof" brick structure covered in the same fragile plaster staff as the rest of the Exposition.

Some thought the exposition a recreation of mythical Atlantis. Sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens exclaimed the palace building, "the finest thing done since the Parthenon." Others were not so kind. Famed architect Louis Sullivan agreed with fans that the Exposition's architecture would sweep the country, but lamented that the Beaux Arts design would "set modern architecture back at least half a century."

More than 27 million people visited the exposition, and Chicago decided to make more buildings permanent. But a major depression and the resulting waves of industrial strikes turned the grounds into a homeless encampment before reconstruction could begin. The coal Chicago burned for heat and power had already dimmed the White City.

In 1894, Marshall Field — of department store fame — contributed his name and money for a natural history museum, The Field Museum, to be housed in the palace. In 1920, with the former Palace of Fine Arts building deteriorating, The Field Museum moved to its new home in Grant Park.

The now neglected Palace of Fine Arts building quickly fell to ruin. Its foundation weakened in the swampy soil. Winds and rain rusted the steel and chipped away at the plastered brick and wood. Chicago Tribune reporter Charles Leroux writes of the struggle to keep the building together with "the equivalent of duct tape." Once abandoned, critics called the old palace "a scaly, wormy pile that should be allowed to die." Public sentiment favored saving its last remnant of the White City, and in 1922 the Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs raised nearly $7,000 to "renew" a corner.

Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry Facts: Style Beaux-Arts - Ancient Greece 350,000 square-feet of Indiana limestone 500 feet long, 320 feet wide Transept 100 feet wide (60 feet glass), 70 feet high Dome 60-foot diameter, 125 feet high Two annexes: 120 feet long, 200 feet wide More than 140 rooms

Julius Rosenwald, chairmanship of Sears Roebuck & Company, and department store rival of Field, decided the palace should house an industrial museum. With $3 million of his own money, Rosenwald convinced the influential Commercial Club of Chicago to back his plan. In 1926, the South Park District passed a $5 million bond issue for building restoration, though only the exterior would look exactly as it had in 1893.

More debate was yet in store, as terra cotta and stone vendors faced off in paid full-page ads and at Park Board meetings and newspaper editorials. Indiana limestone won with a contract of 28,000 tons of stone.

In 1929, R.C. Wieboldt Company officially launched the reconstruction by smashing a brick through a window of the old building. Construction continued through the Depression. Two years later, Wieboldt oversaw installation of the caryatids and statues he called "the ladies" over the portals.

Masons rebuilt the historic exterior entirely out of Indiana limestone. However, this was the new era, so the interior was a thoroughly modern Art Deco (some called it Art Moderne) design by architect Alfred Shaw, with 14-plus acres of terrazzo flooring.

Though only 10 percent of exhibit space was ready, the museum official grand opened in 1933 to coincide with The Century of Progress Exhibition.

Rosenwald had objected to the use of his name as the museum's. After his death, the edifice became simply The Museum of Science and Industry. It became an official Chicago landmark Nov. 1, 1995.

The Museum of Science and Industry's stone resurrection clearly enshrines the Columbia Exposition's legacy.

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