Chicago World's Fair

May 1, 1893

The World's Columbian Exposition opened in a plaster 'White City' along Lake Michigan, celebrating Columbus four hundred years late. Twenty-seven million people came to see the Ferris wheel, Cracker Jack, and the future of electric light. Frederick Jackson Turner read a paper announcing the end of the American frontier. The fair's dazzling White City inspired the City Beautiful movement that reshaped urban planning across the United States.