Tales from a Scenic Artist and Scholar. Part 481: Meet Me at the Fair

Part 481: Meet Me at the Fair

“Meet me in St. Louis, Louis,
Meet me at the fair,
Don’t tell me the lights are shining
Any place but there,
We will dance the Hoochee Koochee,
I will be your tootsie wootsie,
If you will meet in St. Louis, Louis,
Meet me at the fair.”

In 1904, Thomas G. Moses wrote, “In the fall, Ella and I went to the St. Louis’ World’s Fair, and enjoyed it immensely. We went direct to the grounds and registered at the ‘Inside Inn.’

“I knew the manager very well, and we felt we would be well taken care of.” The manager was Colonel E. M. Statler. Statler had built and operated Statler’s Pan-American hotel at the Buffalo Exposition. Moses would have known him there as he had worked on Thompson’s “Trip to the Moon.”

For the World Fair in St. Louis, Statler conceived of the idea to construct a grand hotel inside the fairgrounds. In fact, the Inside Inn was the only hotel located on the 1904 World’s fairgrounds. Partially shaded by large oak trees, the ten acres occupied by Inside Inn were situated in the southeast corner and offered premium views of the Plateau of States.

The Inn accommodated 5,000 guests with 2257 rooms. Moses wrote, “Our room number was 6325. Of course there were not that many rooms.” Serviced by a staff of 2,000, there were two restaurants, a drug store, a lounge, haberdashery, shoeshine parlor, newsstand and a barbershop. The Inside Inn was intended as a temporary building, constructed of yellow pine, stucco and fire-proof burlap. Of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition structure, Moses wrote, “It was an awful firetrap and awfully poor furniture, but they had a good chef and he made up for many other defects.”

The price to stay at the Inside Inn ran from $1.50 to $7.00 dollars, some plans offered two meals per day in addition to accommodations. One of the slogans was “A room and bath for a buck and a half.” There was also a buffet that could seat 2,500 patrons. It was reported that at the close of the fair, Statler’s receipts totaled $1,480,743.13. That is not bad, considering the initial investment was 300,000 dollars. In the end, Statler sold the Inside Inn building for $30,000 dollars scrap.

Commenting about the fair, Moses wrote, “We covered a lot of ground in the four days we had to spend there, which was hardly enough. The Art Gallery was very good and I saw many of my old favorites in the English and American schools. Some of the sideshows were also good. The Fair covered so much ground that it was tiresome going from one show to the other.”

To be continued…