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Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition records, 1894-1933

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition (1905 : Portland, Or.)
Title
Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition records
Dates
1894-1933 (inclusive)
1903-1906 (bulk)
Quantity
50 cubic feet, (101 document cases, 1 card file box, 20 flat boxes, 1 oversize folder)
Collection Number
Mss 1609
Summary
Records of an international exposition held in Portland, Oregon, in 1905. Includes extensive correspondence files covering all aspects of the fair from its inception to its demolition; contracts, financial records, drawings, printed matter, and pictorial works. Also includes correspondence of exposition officers Henry E. Dosch, Frank Vincent DuMond, Henry W. Goode, Henry E. Reed, and John Wakefield, among others.
Repository
Oregon Historical Society Research Library
1200 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR
97205
Telephone: 503-306-5240
Fax: 503-219-2040
libreference@ohs.org
Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research.

Languages
English
Sponsor
Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities
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Historical Note

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.

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Content Description

The records of the exposition cover all aspects of the enterprise, from its inception to its final demolition. The bulk of the materials cover the years 1904 and 1905 and relate to the logistics of organizing exhibits and concessions, hiring workers, planning the fair grounds, constructing the buildings, and operating the Exposition on a day-to-day basis.

Because of the broad scope of the Exposition, the collection provides a valuable documentation of all manner of commercial, industrial, agricultural, and entertainment enterprises taking place the years 1904-1905. Especially well documented are Oregon's own enterprises. A comprehensive list of award recipients can be found in the series "Division of Exhibits," subseries "Awards."

Extensive correspondence with bands, orchestras, and other musical organizations is noteworthy, as are letters from all manner of entertainers. A file of letters and photographs from the prize fighter John L. Sullivan is of particular interest. Another significant group of materials are the employment inquiries from hundreds of people seeking positions with the fair company, including a large percentage of women. The records of the Oregon Education Exhibits contain a large number of bound books of student writing, drawings, and photographs.

Although most officers of the Exposition are represented, a large percentage of the correspondence comes from the offices of the President, Henry W. Goode; the Secretary and Director of Exploitation, Henry E. Reed; the Director of Exhibits, Henry E. Dosch; and the Director of Concessions and Admissions, John Wakefield. In some cases files of correspondence between two particular officers can be found under each of the officers' departments. Most files contain both incoming letters and carbon copies of outgoing letters.

Although written records of construction are included — such as specifications for some buildings — very few blueprints or scale drawings are present. A large collection of blueprints and scale drawings of the exposition is held by the Oregon State Archives in Salem. Visual documentation is provided by a series of illustrated works in the series "Publications," however the bulk of the photographic record is housed in the photograph collection of the Oregon Historical Society in the Kiser Collection (Org. Lot 140).

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.

Preferred Citation

Lewis & Clark Centennial Expositon Records, Mss 1609, Oregon Historical Society Research Library

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

An effort was made to reconstruct the original order the materials as best as possible. Therefore the arrangement reflects the administrative organization of the Exposition company. However, many files contained mixtures of materials from various offices, and these were placed in the series "General Files" under appropriate categories.

The collection is arranged into the following series:

  • Series 1: Board of Directors
  • Series 2: President's Office
  • Series 3: President's Office, Department of Special Events
  • Series 4: President's Office, Department of Special Events, Bureau of Athletics
  • Series 5: President's Office, Committee on Congresses
  • Series 6: Secretary's Office
  • Series 7: Division of Architecture
  • Series 8: Division of Concessions and Admissions
  • Series 9: Division of Exhibits
  • Series 10: Division of Exploitation
  • Series 11: General Files
  • Series 12: Publications
  • Series 13: Scrapbook of General Charles Beebe

Acquisition Information

The origin of the collection is unknown, but it is likely that it was acquired by the Oregon Historical Society from one of the exposition's officers. Additional materials were added to the collection over the years.

Processing Note

The collection has been processed a number of times by the repository, and the original order of the materials is now uncertain. The most recent processing (2005 Jan.-Apr.) involved the sorting and refinement of files and the organization of the entire collection into more logical categories. Although an attempt was made to reconstruct the original order whenever possible, it was necessary to place some of the materials into artificial categories in the series "General Files."

A number of file units have been described at the item level, however most units were described only at the file level. Therefore researchers should be aware that not all items are listed in this finding aid. For example, a name that does not appear in this finding aid may still be found in a file that has not been described at the item level.

Bibliography

  • Abbott, Carl. The great extravaganza: Portland and the Lewis and Clark Exposition. Oregon Historical Society, revised edition, 2005.
  • Clark, Shawn M. A world's fair to promote overseas commerce: the Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair of 1905. 1991.
  • Hardt, H.B., compiler, Official catalogue of the Lewis & Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A., June 1 to October 15, 1905. A. Hess & Co., [1905].
  • Report of the Lewis and Clark centennial exposition commission for the state of Oregon. J.R. Whitney, State Printer, 1906.

Related Materials

Photographic documentation of the exposition can be found in the Photograph collections of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library. These include the following:

  • Org. Lot 140, Kiser Collection
  • Org. Lot 1266, Photographs of buildings and grounds at Lewis and Clark Exposition
  • Org. Lot 598, Lewis and Clark Exposition Airships Collection
  • Org. Lot 709, Forestry Building fire photographic collection
  • Self-Indexing Files 652 A-K, Lewis & Clark Exposition

Manuscript collections relating to the Exposition held by the Oregon Historical Society include:

  • Mss 383, Henry E. Reed, Official history of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, 1908 (typed & bound original)
  • Mss 421, George H. Williams Papers
  • Mss 1110, Henry W. Corbett Papers
  • Mss 1509, Diaries & Reminiscences, Pauline Oelo McClay diary (holograph copy & typescript)
  • Mss 1522, Manners & Customs Collection – ephemera
  • Mss 2383, Charles Paul Keyser (re: Forestry Building, carbon typescript)
  • Mss 2907, Alfred Powers Papers
  • Mss 3110-1, Ion Lewis, architect. Plan for Forestry Building (blackline copy)

Sound recordings available in the Oregon Historical Society Research Library include:

Maps available in the Oregon Historical Society Research Library include:

  • Caughey, Rollin, artist. Birds eye view of Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition and Oriental Fair Portland, Oregon. Lewis and Clark Exposition ; Mutual L. & L. Co., 1905; Oregon Historical Society, 1980.
  • Ground plan Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, Portland Oregon : total area 402 acres. 190-?
  • Layout Portland Consolidated Ry. Cos. tracks, to the Lewis and Clark Fair Ground Portland, Oregon. 1905?
  • Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, Portland, Oregon, 1905.
  • McIsaac, Colin H. Map of Portland, Oregon. Colin H. McIsaac, 1905
  • Map of Willamette Heights and Guilds Lake : proposed site for Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition, 1905, surveyed under the direction of the Executive Committee ; Huber and Maxwell, engineers. 1905?

Vertical file "Exposition—Lewis & Clark (Portland), 1905" in the Oregon Historical Society Research Library

An additional collection of records of the Lewis & Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair can be found at the Wilson Room of the Multnomah County Central Library, Portland, Or.

The records of the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition Commission, including blueprints for the buildings, can be found at the Oregon State Archives, Salem, Or.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Agriculture--Oregon--History
  • Agriculture--Washington (state)--History
  • Amusements--Oregon--Portland--History
  • Education--Oregon--History
  • Exhibitions--Oregon--Portland
  • Music--United States--History

Personal Names

  • Corbett, Henry Winslow, 1827-1903
  • Dosch, Henry Ernst, b. 1841--Correspondence
  • DuMond, Frank Vincent, 1865-1951--Correspondence
  • Goode, Henry W.--Correspondence
  • Huber, Oskar--Correspondence
  • Lewis, Ion, 1853-1933--Correspondence
  • Reed, Henry E.--Correspondence
  • Scott, Harvey W. (Harvey Whitefield), 1838-1910--Correspondence
  • Sullivan, John Lawrence, 1858-1918
  • Wakefield, John A.--Correspondence

Corporate Names

  • Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition (1905 : Portland, Or.)
  • Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition Commission

Geographical Names

  • Japan--Foreign relations--1868-1912
  • Portland (Or.)--History--20th century

Form or Genre Terms

  • awards
  • bills of sale
  • blueprints
  • guidebooks
  • job applications
  • letterpress copybooks
  • pamphlets
  • scrapbooks
  • stock certificates

Finding aid prepared by Geoffrey B. Wexler, George Miller, and Carla Shults
2004

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