Archives West Finding Aid

The Lewis & Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair was an international event celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition. It was held in Portland, Oregon, from June 1 to October 15, 1905, and was designed to promote trade between the Pacific Northwest and Asia, to promote the wealth of Oregon through its forestry, industry and agriculture, and to promote the arts of the region.

Plans for a Portland exposition were considered as early as 1895, but it was not until 1900 that a provisional commitee of Portland businessmen began to seriously develop the idea. In December of that year the Oregon Historical Society and Oregonian editor Harvey Scott proposed holding the fair in 1905 as the centennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Besides Scott, the early leaders of the effort were banker and former U.S. senator Henry W. Corbett, who became the exposition corporation's first president, and J. M. Long of the Portland Board of Trade. Incorporation papers were filed in October of 1901 and journalist Henry E. Reed was hired to promote the enterprise throughout the U.S. and abroad. In November of 1901, $300,000 of stock was issued and quickly purchased. The involvement of the state of Oregon was coordinated by the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition Commission with Jefferson Myers as chairman. By September of 1902 a site for the fair had been chosen — the Guild's Lake area northwest of downtown Portland. Work began in the early months of 1903. Later that year Harvey Scott assumed the presidency of the corporation after the death of Henry Corbett. A long campaign to gain U.S. Government support succeeded finally in April of 1904 with President Roosevelt's signing of an appropration bill.

The original layout of the exposition grounds was developed by John Olmsted, son of Central Park's planner Frederick Law Olmsted. The work of construction was overseen by Oskar Huber, Superintendent of Works, and architectural decisions were made by Portland architect Ion Lewis. Using as a model the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the main buildings of the Portland fair were situated on a ridge overlooking Guild's Lake and the Willamette River, with massive exhibition halls fronting a central "sunken garden" which led down the hill to a stepped esplanade and a bandstand at the water's edge. A street of amusement concessions called The Trail led to the long Bridge of Nations which connected the shore to the U.S. Government Island containing a massive double-towered pavilion. Notable among the other exposition buildings were the American Inn — a vast hotel for visitors situated at lakeside — and the Forestry Building — a huge log cabin made from gigantic tree trunks, which survived until destroyed by fire in the 1960s.

Although Portland's exposition was one of many world's fairs that took place around the same time, its managers learned much from the efforts of other cities, most notably St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. The Portland fair was promoted at St. Louis by Colonel Henry E. Dosch, who headed the Oregon section and served later as Director of Exhibits of the Lewis & Clark fair. Many of Portland's exhibits and amusements came directly from St. Louis.

Among the the thousands of exhibits, the most popular was that of Japan, situated in the Oriental Exhibit Palace. The amusements of The Trail were not as well-attended as hoped, this due in part to efforts at a Sunday closure. Aside from trained elks, baby incubators, aerial artists, and other acts, the most elaborate of the shows was Bolossy Kiralfy's Carnival of Venice — an extravagnza involving hundreds of dancers on a 400-foot stage. Also held at the fair were a number of national and international conferences and congresses, among them a women's suffrage congress attended by Susan B. Anthony, an historical conference, and a national educational conference.

The administration of the exposition was handled with great effeciency. Heading the corporation was the President (orignally the Director-General), H. W. Goode. Henry E. Reed was the corporations' Secretary and also the Exposition's Director of Exploitation. Other officers were Director of Exhibits Henry E. Dosch; John A. Wakefield, Director of Concessions and Admissions; Ion Lewis, Director of Architecture; Frank Vincent Du Mond, Chief of Fine Arts; J. F. Batchelder, Superintendent of Mines and Metallurgy; and Oskar Huber, Director of Works.

The exposition was a great success on many levels. Attendance figures were 1,558,000 paid admissions and 966,000 free passes, well above projections. The corporation made a net profit of $84,461 and was one of the few U.S. expositions to end with a positive balance. More importantly, the fair succeeded in promoting Oregon in general and Portland in particular. It is likely that the exposition contributed substantially to Portland's great economic and population boom from 1905 to 1912.