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Official Ground Plan of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition St. Louis, Mo. [cover title].

Cosmopolis, Washington; St. Louis: O. Schrowang, 204 N. Third St., 1904. Two color-printed maps, 8.85” x 13.5” and 7.35” x 10.875”, one on each side of a single sheet, folding into printed tan wrappers, 6.25” x 2.5”. CONDITION: Good, a few short tears including a 2” separation along old vertical folds, but no losses to the maps; wrappers rubbed.

A map of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis advertising a Washington State lumber company that exhibited at the fair. 

Oriented with North at the bottom, the map on the recto shows the entirety of Forest Park, the 1,200-acre site of the fair. The exhibition embraced over 1,500 buildings, which as delineated here were connected by some seventy-five miles of roads, paths, and rail lines. To the right of the map is a list of the exposition’s exhibit buildings, plazas, restaurants, and more, with coordinates to help the visitor find them on the map. Attractions included the South African Boer Exhibit, Moorish Palace, Ostrich Farm, Ceylon Tea Garden, and Anthropology Exhibit. Text surrounding the map promotes Grays Harbor Commercial Co. of Cosmopolis, Washington and its lumber products, exhorting the public to see “the 10-ft. wide spruce boards and spruce finished work exhibited in the Washington State and Forestry Buildings.” The verso map is a map of St. Louis, showing the city’s complete street car system outlined in red and indicating the site of the fair grounds. Promotional text relating to Grays Harbor Commercial Co. lumber appears on the inside of the front wrapper. An illustration of the exterior of the Washington State Building appears on the rear wrapper. 

The 1904 World’s Fair was the largest in area up to that time and featured exhibits from nearly all U.S. states, as well as some fifty foreign countries. The city of St. Louis appropriated $5 million for the fair, which was matched both by public subscription and another $5 million appropriated by Congress. Forest Park was designed by landscape architect George Kessler and construction began in 1901. Much of the construction remained after the close of the fair. The fair’s most significant attractions included the Philippines exhibition, the first exhibit of private cars (Ford began producing the Model T just four years later); a speech by the young Helen Keller; an early version of the fax machine; and even the ice cream cone.

Based in St. Louis, O. Schrowang published several other maps including Map of St. Louis and Suburbs (St. Louis, 1908) and Pilot’s Map of St. Louis County (St. Louis, 1914).

OCLC records five copies, at Missouri Historical Museum, California State University at Fresno, Princeton, University of Chicago, and Pennsylvania State University, only one of which promotes Grays Harbor Commercial Co.

REFERENCES: “History of Forest Park” at St. Louis, MO online.

Item #8750

Price: $350.00

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