Survivor: White City

Just about everyone knows that the Museum of Science and Industry is the lone surviving building of the Columbian Exposition's White City in Jackson Park. Originally known as the Palace of Fine Arts it was converted into an art museum when the Fair closed and renamed the Field Columbian Museum until 1920. With a $3 million dollar grant from Sears Roebuck and Company chairman, Julius Rosenwald, and a $5 million bond issue from the South Park District, the crumbling building was rebuilt. The doors opened on June 19, 1933, just in time to welcome world visitors to The Century of Progress.

Two more Exposition buildings, however, have survived although not in Chicago.

The Norway Pavilion


The Norway Building is now part of a Blue Ridge, Wisconsin attraction called "Little Norway." The building, one of the few examples of a twelfth-century Norse church outside of Norway, is the centerpiece of a Norwegian village established on the mid 1800s homestead of Osten Olson Haugen. In addition to the Norway Building, the site includes a Stabbur, or food storehouse, a traditional sod-roofed cabin, and a main cabin.



The Maine State Building



The Maine State Building , originally constructed for the Fair by architect Charles Sumner Frost, is now located in Poland Spring, Maine. The unusual octagonal shaped structure was moved to its present location by train and ox cart after the Fair and rededicated in 1895.

The Ricker Family bought the building for $30,000. Arrangements were made for the dismantling of the building and shipping by freight train back to Maine. It was to take 16 freight cars! "The Rickers sent a crew of 19 men to Chicago, led by Forest Walker of Poland, the resort's head carpenter and civil engineer to take the building down, carefully marking each section. The building was taken apart under the personal supervision of Hiram W. Ricker, loaded on a special train of sixteen cars and transported to Maine, at a cost of over three thousand dollars...to become the crowning feature of the opening of the season of 1895. The corner stone was laid on August 14, 1894, and the Maine State Building was dedicated on July 1, 1895, as part of the celebration marking the Ricker's settling in Poland."

Recommended website:
Historic Preservation, Hyde Park-Kenwood History, and Architecture