Discuss Detroit » Archives - July 2007 » Newbie With a Question about Detroit Intl. Expo. Grounds « Previous Next »
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Elsuperbob
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Username: Elsuperbob

Post Number: 6
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 11:00 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hello all

I've posted a few times but wanted to introduce myself and ask a question.

Me: I'm currently in exile from Detroit in Ann Arbor while I go through architecture graduate school. Because of that I'm now mostly away from Detroit, school consuming almost every waking hour and even some non waking hours.

But, anyway, on to the question. While sorting through some maps last summer from the 1890s researching what would become neighborhood in Dearborn I found something listed as the "Detroit International Exposition Grounds" at the mouth of the Rouge River.

I'm curious if anyone has any further info on this place? Was it ever really active as an international expo and if so when and what sorts of things went on there. How successful was it? There's not much I've found about it. Well, other than it listed on some document, nothing really.

The map is from 1893

http://www-personal.umich.edu/ ~pamastro/P8313803colmaskbig.j pg
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Scottr
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Username: Scottr

Post Number: 537
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 11:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

pardon for stating the obvious, but did you try a google search? I started with "Detroit International Fair" (which were the exact words on the map, dropping the 'and Exposition' to widen the search a bit.) before long, i found this:

http://www.printsoldandrare.co m/michigan/209mi.jpg

From a quick glance at other results, the fair looks like it was in 1889, and the main building was built entirely of wood and designed by Louis Kamper.

(Message edited by scottr on June 27, 2007)
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Gistok
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Username: Gistok

Post Number: 4684
Registered: 08-2004
Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 11:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Actually that Exposition was in 1889. No clue as to what was significant about that year. But the main pavilion is mentioned and pictured in W. Hawkins Ferry's "Buildings Of Detroit" book.

Like many buildings built for fairs and expositions around the country, the building was made of impermanent materials (wood and plaster), and was torn down soon afterwards.
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Scottr
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Username: Scottr

Post Number: 538
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 11:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Correction, it ran from 1889 to 1892.

from http://www.rarebooklink.com/cg i-bin/kingbooks/97-0241.html (John K King Used & Rare Books):

Commemorative Medal from the Detroit International Fair and Exposition.
Detroit 1892 Copper colored, 2.25 diameter. Scratched (mainly from prior attempts at cleaning), small dent and abrasion on side else good. Shown on one side is the image of the Expo Bldg, with flags flying from all the towers and the date of 1892 below; around the rim is printed "Awarded by the Detroit International Fair and Exposition." On the reverse is a circle of leaves; in that circle are the words "Awarded to Mrs. William Dwyer, Detroit, Mich. For Largest Display of Knit Work." Medal was produced by the P.L. Krider Co., Phila. The expo ran between 1889-92 and was held on a tract of seventy acres in the Delray district along the Detroit River. The main exhibit building was designed by Louis Kamper who later went on to design the Book Cadillac Hotel. At the expo were horse and cattle barns, swine and sheep sheds, a race track, a restaurant and an art gallery. Scarce.
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Elsuperbob
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Username: Elsuperbob

Post Number: 7
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 11:42 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks, Scottr. But it's not really the shed that I'm interested in as much as the event itself. What became of it? Did the introduction of the state fair in Detroit 13 years later fill the need to hold any other fairs on the international's site?
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Scottr
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Username: Scottr

Post Number: 539
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 11:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sorry, Gistok, looks like you read that first post before i edited it - one site said 1891, which is what i went with at first, but then saw that others said 1889, so i went back and fixed it. only when i looked at that last link did it occur to me that those Expos usually lasted more than one year, so all of them were actually correct.
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Elsuperbob
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Username: Elsuperbob

Post Number: 8
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 11:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks, Gistok. I need to unbury my Ferry book from the boxes of things back from school for the summer.
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Elsuperbob
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Username: Elsuperbob

Post Number: 9
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 12:14 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Gistok... Possibly 1889 as the 100th anniversary of the first government under the Constitution?
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Gistok
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Username: Gistok

Post Number: 4689
Registered: 08-2004
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 12:51 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Funny thing is that Detroit was still under the British flag until 1796, but you could be right about the Centennial of the US government (since George Washington was president starting in 1789).

As for the Michigan State Fair. I do know that it is the oldest in the country, going back until 1849, IIRC. Don't know about earlier locations of it though.

You do make a good point about why there weren't other expositions in Detroit though. Because Chicago had the 1892-93 Worlds Fair, St. Louis had one in 1904-05 (Lewis & Clark Exposition), San Francisco had one in 1915 (Pan-Pacific Expo), Philadelphia in 1926 (Sesquicentennial), Texas Centennial in 1935-36, Chicago Centennial in 1933, Cleveland in circa 1936, and 1939 Fairs in both New York and San Francisco.

There were also large fairs in San Diego, Seattle and Knoxville. And after watching Antiques Roadshow, even Omaha had a big Exposition.
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Mikeg
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Username: Mikeg

Post Number: 973
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 7:33 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"Images of America: Detroit 1860-1899" by David Poremba has seven captioned photos of the 1889 Detroit International Fair and Exposition that are shown on pp. 82-85.

My synopsis after reading the captions:
The Fair was held from Sept. 17 to Sept. 27, 1889 on 14 acres of land south of the city limits along the Detroit River located between Fort Wayne and the Rouge River. The fair was a combination agricultural and industrial event, as well as an exposition. The fairgrounds included a pavilion, plus a harness racing track and water basin for sailing races. Baseball and lacrosse games were also held on-site. In addition to special train and streetcar lines, river ferries ran continually from Port Huron, Detroit and Canada bringing passengers to the fair's main boat landing at the confluence of the Detroit and Rouge Rivers. The main exhibition hall featured a 200 foot tall central tower, and had a frontage of 500 feet and a total 200,000 square feet of space, making it the largest exhibit building in the world. Harper Hospital staffed a first-aid building that was the size of a single family residence. The fair was so large that it deserved a two or three day visit. The site was used for exhibitions through 1892.
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Mikeg
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Username: Mikeg

Post Number: 974
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 7:52 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Here is a cropped version of the image that Scottr found and linked to in his earlier post.

Detroit International Fair and Exposition of 1889


A similar, but slightly different illustration was used by the Fair for their give-away map, which is shown in Poremba's book.

In this illustration, the Detroit River is in the background, Detroit would be at the upper left and the Rouge River is at the lower right.
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Bobzilla
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Username: Bobzilla

Post Number: 89
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 8:54 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Louis Kamper designed the huge Expo Pavilion.

He had been with McKim Mead & White in NY until 1888 so this was one of his first buildings in the D. (He soon designed Hecker Mansion ... and it was more than 30 years later that he designed the Book-Caddy, Book Tower, Broderick Tower, etc.)

The Expo Pavilion was inspired by the House of Parliament in London. But it was made of wood and it was meant to be a temporary structure.

The Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 was MUCH bigger and better than Detroit's. I saw a great PBS special about it. Nations from all over the world set up big exhibits in Chicago. And George Ferris' 25-story Ferris Wheel was at the expo in Chicago. When the expo ended, all of the buildings except one were dismantled.
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1953
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Username: 1953

Post Number: 1422
Registered: 12-2004
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 9:02 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Chicago sucks.
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Scottr
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Username: Scottr

Post Number: 544
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 9:13 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

lol at 1953. However, given that Chicago at that point already was a city of over a million people, and Detroit had barely broken 200,000, it doesn't surprise me that the Chicago show was bigger. Henry Ford was still running a sawmill in 1889, and Detroit's manufacturing might was still decades away.
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Elsuperbob
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Username: Elsuperbob

Post Number: 10
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 9:54 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks, Mikeg. I'll check out that book. As Gistok said it is strange that that was our own international expo because as Scottr said we were a city of barely 200,000 and no more important or special than any other medium sized city in America at that time.

And, yes 1953, Chicago did/does suck with their big fancy White City bedazzling people from all around.
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Fury13
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Username: Fury13

Post Number: 1817
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 11:02 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

More Chicago envy. LMFAO!!!

The fact is that the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893 is a well-remembered, national World's Fair, and Detroit's 1889 Expo is largely forgotten.

The 1904 St. Louis World's Fair may have been the most influential of all, though, in terms of American pop culture (hamburgers, ice cream cones).
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Bob_cosgrove
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Username: Bob_cosgrove

Post Number: 548
Registered: 03-2005
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 12:00 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The location of the International Exposition was on the Detroit River immediately west of Historic Fort Wayne on West Jeffrson at the foot of Livenois.

It was later the Solvay Process Company, manufacturers of Soda Ash used in glass making, etc.

It is now a truck terminal.

Bob Cosgrove

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