Chapter 4
Dreaming the White City: Burnham's Impossible Task
By July 1890, nearly six months after Congress awarded Chicago the World's Columbian Exposition, the forty-five directors still hadn't decided on a location within the city. With Dedication Day set for October 12, 1892, and formal opening for May 1, 1893, Burnham knew time was precious-only twenty-six months remained. Frustrated by the stalemate, director James Ellsworth visited Frederick Law Olmsted in Massachusetts, offering him $1,000 to evaluate potential sites.
Olmsted-sixty-eight, partly lame, and plagued by various ailments-eventually agreed when Ellsworth described a vision far grander than the Paris exposition. With his talented young associate Henry Codman, he arrived in Chicago on August 6, 1890, ready to begin work immediately. Though Olmsted personally preferred a northern lakefront site, he insisted Jackson Park could work beautifully, producing "results of a pleasingly becoming character." He dismissed inland sites as flat, monotonous, and too far from the lake.
In late October 1890, the exposition board appointed Burnham chief of construction with a salary equivalent to $360,000 in today's money. Burnham made Root the fair's supervising architect and Olmsted its supervising landscape architect. Though he now had formal authority to begin building, he still had no place to put it.
On December 15, 1890, Burnham boarded a train to New York for what would prove the most crucial encounter of the exposition planning. He had secretly invited five prominent architects to join the exposition-George Post, Charles McKim, Richard Hunt, Robert Peabody, and Henry Van Brunt-none from Chicago. At the Players Club on December 22, Burnham faced these architectural giants-all wealthy, accomplished men with formal training that Burnham himself lacked. He described his vision for a fair grander than Paris, emphasized Olmsted's involvement, and promised complete artistic independence.
Burnham returned to Chicago to find local architects and exposition board members outraged that he had courted eastern architects while snubbing Chicago talent. Under pressure, Burnham and Root hastily invited five Chicago firms to join the project. Root then prepared to travel to New York for an American Institute of Architects meeting, though colleagues noticed his unusual fatigue when he complained about his workload-an alarming sign from someone who never complained about excessive work.
On January 12, 1891, the eastern and Chicago architects convened in Burnham & Root's library at the Rookery. Root was absent, and Burnham soon received news that Root had pneumonia. Root's condition worsened despite brief signs of improvement. On Thursday afternoon, Burnham visited Root, who asked him not to leave again. After briefly stepping away, Burnham returned to find Root had died, his last moments spent running his fingers over the bedding as if playing piano, whispering about beautiful music.
Devastated, Burnham paced Root's living room, lamenting how his dreams for their architectural greatness were now shattered. Root's death stunned Chicago, with many wondering if the exposition could survive without him. Despite his grief, Burnham returned to work the following Monday, facing mounting challenges including labor unrest and financial uncertainty.
On February 24, 1891, Burnham, Olmsted, Hunt and the other architects gathered in the Rookery's library to present their drawings to the Grounds and Buildings Committee. Each building revealed was more elaborate and immense than the last. Hunt displayed his Administration Building with its 275-foot dome. George Post's Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building would be the largest structure ever built, containing enough steel for two Brooklyn Bridges.
As daylight faded and gas jets were lit, Lyman Gage rose trembling with emotion: "You are dreaming, gentlemen. I only hope that half the vision may be realized." Sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens rushed to Burnham declaring it "the greatest meeting of artists since the fifteenth century." The White City was taking shape, but enormous challenges remained.
Chapter 5
Murder by Design: Holmes's House of Horrors
While Burnham struggled to build his dream city, Holmes perfected his nightmare castle. In November 1891, Julia Conner, who worked in Holmes's pharmacy and had become his lover after her marriage to jewelry counter manager Ned Conner dissolved, told Holmes she was pregnant and demanded marriage. Holmes responded with warmth, agreeing to marry her on one condition: she must allow him to perform an abortion first. He assured her it would be painless under chloroform, and they could have children later.
As Christmas approached, Julia put her daughter Pearl to bed, promising Saint Nicholas would bring wonderful gifts. Later, she helped her neighbor Mrs. Crowe decorate a Christmas tree for Pearl and mentioned plans to attend her sister's wedding in Davenport, Iowa. Mrs. Crowe noted Julia seemed in good spirits when she left that night.
Holmes led Julia to a second-floor room prepared for surgery, instruments deliberately arranged to intimidate. After chloroforming her, he watched her struggle briefly before falling unconscious, finding intense arousal in her helplessness. When her pulse faded to nothing, he proceeded to Pearl's room with fresh chloroform-soaked cloth.
Shortly after Christmas, Holmes hired Charles Chappell, an "articulator" who prepared skeletons for medical display, offering him $36 to clean and articulate a woman's corpse. Chappell, accustomed to working with cadavers from Cook County Hospital, saw nothing suspicious in a physician possessing a body. After Chappell returned the assembled skeleton, Holmes sold it to Hahneman Medical College at a significant profit.
In spring 1892, Holmes hired Emeline Cigrand, a beautiful 24-year-old blonde stenographer from Keeley's alcoholism treatment center in Dwight, Illinois, offering double her salary to become his personal secretary. Emeline eagerly accepted, bringing her $800 savings to Chicago, enchanted by the prospect of living in the glamorous city during the lead-up to the world's fair.
Holmes quickly began his seduction, buying her flowers, taking her to the opera, and gifting her a bicycle. They often rode together to Jackson Park to watch the fair's construction. By October, Emeline had become thoroughly infatuated with Holmes, even believing his secret claim to be the son of an English lord. Soon after, Holmes proposed marriage, promising Emeline a European honeymoon.
In early December, Emeline visited neighbors in Holmes's building, bearing an early Christmas gift-a tin plate she had painted with a forest scene. When asked why she hadn't waited until Christmas, Emeline explained she was returning to Indiana to spend the holiday with her family. She never said goodbye to her neighbors. When questioned, Holmes claimed Emeline had left to get married. Days later, he showed a typeset wedding announcement for Emeline and Robert E. Phelps, dated December 7, 1892.
What no one knew was that "Phelps" was an alias used by Holmes's assistant Benjamin Pitezel; that Holmes had enlisted Charles Chappell to articulate another female corpse in January 1893; and that inside Holmes's vault, a woman's footprint had become mysteriously etched into the door's enamel-possibly created when a victim stepped in acid and pressed against the door in a desperate attempt to escape.
Holmes's pattern of murder emerged quietly within his "castle." A waitress from his restaurant vanished without explanation. A stenographer named Jennie Thompson disappeared, as did Evelyn Stewart, who either worked for or stayed at the hotel. A male physician who had rented an office and befriended Holmes also departed without word to anyone.
Chemical odors permeated the building-sometimes caustic like cleanser, other times medicinal as if someone were administering anesthesia. Occasionally the scent of gas filled the halls. When concerned family and friends inquired about the missing, Holmes responded with sympathy and helpfulness. The police, occupied with wealthy visitors and foreign dignitaries arriving for the fair, paid no attention.
Chapter 6
The Impossible Deadline: Building the Dream Against Time
By spring 1891, Burnham lived full-time in his shanty at Jackson Park, rarely seeing his family despite the modest train distance. Construction finally began in July 1891, with Burnham inserting "czar" clauses into contracts giving him absolute authority over deadlines and workforce. Despite many proposals to "out-Eiffel Eiffel," including towers with rubber-cable bounce rides and four-thousand-foot structures, Burnham remained unsatisfied-Eiffel had already conquered tower-building for France.
Burnham meticulously planned for every threat to the fair's success. He established the Columbian Guard police force under Colonel Edmund Rice, emphasizing crime prevention rather than just arrests. To combat waterborne disease, he built a water-sterilization plant and arranged for both filtered lake water and pure spring water from Waukesha, Wisconsin. Fire prevention became his greatest concern-haunted by the Grannis Block fire, he created an exposition fire department with hundreds of hydrants, alarm boxes, and a specialized fire boat called the Fire Queen.
Construction challenges mounted. When chief structural engineer Abraham Gottlieb admitted failing to calculate wind loads, Burnham immediately halted work and ordered all designs strengthened to withstand the highest winds of the past decade. After Gottlieb resigned, Burnham replaced him with Edward Shankland, later facing criticism that the structures were "unnecessarily strong."
In January 1893, Chicago plunged into bitter cold, with temperatures falling to twenty degrees below zero. Burnham's dawn tours revealed a harsh landscape-frozen horse manure dotting the grounds and two-foot-thick ice contorting Olmsted's carefully planted bulrush and sedge. Olmsted's work lagged dangerously behind schedule, and his Chicago manager Harry Codman was hospitalized after appendicitis surgery. With only four months until Opening Day, the extreme cold intensified fire risks by freezing water lines and driving workers to violate Burnham's ban on open flames.
Tragedy struck when Harry Codman died unexpectedly at age twenty-nine, devastating Olmsted. "You will have heard of our great calamity," he wrote to Gifford Pinchot. "As yet, I am as one standing on a wreck." Forced to take over direct supervision, Olmsted arrived in Chicago in early February to find Codman's desk overwhelmed with paperwork.
Disaster struck when relentless snowfall caused the roof of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building to collapse in a blur of snow and glass. With barely two months until opening, a San Francisco reporter observed the stark reality: "Only the Woman's Building is anywhere near completion inside and out."
As Opening Day approached, Olmsted was deeply disappointed by the incomplete state of the grounds, and wounded by criticism from others, "even as clever as Burnham." The deadline remained immutable as trains brought dignitaries from around the world, including President Cleveland and his entourage.
Twenty-three gleaming black carriages lined Michigan Avenue's yellow mud outside the Lexington Hotel as President Cleveland boarded the seventh carriage, with Burnham and Davis sharing the sixth despite their unresolved mutual distrust. The procession rumbled south toward Jackson Park, followed by 200,000 Chicagoans on foot, horseback, and packed into every conceivable conveyance.
The greatest miracle was the overnight transformation of the grounds. Ten thousand men working through the night had removed debris, touched up paint, planted pansies, and laid sod as a thousand scrubwomen cleaned the buildings. At eleven o'clock, President Cleveland took his seat on the platform as the crowd surged forward, causing twenty women to faint before the ceremony began.
After brief speeches and a lengthy poetic ode to Columbus, Cleveland pressed a gold telegraph key at precisely 12:08, setting in motion the fair's massive machinery. Water exploded from the MacMonnies Fountain, banners unfurled everywhere, and two hundred white doves leaped skyward as the crowd spontaneously sang "My Country 'Tis of Thee."
Chapter 7
The White City Comes Alive: Wonder and Darkness
Despite its incomplete state, the White City offered visitors a vision of urban possibility that contrasted sharply with Chicago's smoke-filled "Black City." The fair featured clean public bathrooms, pure water, ambulance service, electric streetlights, and an advanced sewage system. The Children's Building provided daycare with claim checks for children-only one child was ever abandoned, and none were lost.
Visitors encountered revolutionary innovations: music transmitted by long-distance telephone from New York, Edison's Kinetoscope showing moving pictures, and Nikola Tesla's electrical demonstrations. They sampled new products like Juicy Fruit gum, Cracker Jack, Shredded Wheat (derided as "shredded doormat"), and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.
The fair's vastness overwhelmed visitors, who bombarded Columbian Guards with endless questions, some bizarre-like the woman who asked which building contained the pope. One amputee, tired of questions, told a persistent visitor his legs were "bit off" before hobbling away.
As the fair progressed, skies cleared and flowers bloomed. The Court of Honor produced such majesty that some visitors wept upon entering. The buildings' shared white color created alluring effects as sunlight changed throughout the day-pale blue in morning mist, ochre at sunset.
At night, the fair became truly magical, with every building outlined in white bulbs and giant searchlights sweeping the grounds. The fair consumed three times as much electricity as the entire city of Chicago, representing the first large-scale test of alternating current. For many visitors like Polish immigrant Hilda Satt, these illuminations were their first encounter with electric lighting. As John Ingalls wrote in Cosmopolitan, "Night is the magician of the fair."
Meanwhile, Holmes's World's Fair Hotel began receiving guests, though not in the volume expected. He strategically told male visitors the hotel was full while filling his rooms with young women unaccustomed to living alone, whom he found "intoxicating."
In March 1893, fortune delivered the perfect acquisition to Holmes: Minnie R. Williams, a plain, short, plump 25-year-old whom Holmes had met years earlier in Boston. Though physically unremarkable with "a baby face" and seemingly limited intellect, she possessed something far more valuable-an inheritance worth between $50,000-$100,000 (equivalent to $1.5-3 million today), primarily in Fort Worth real estate.
Holmes immediately resumed his pursuit, hiring her as his personal stenographer and installing her in rooms adjoining his office. Their romance intensified rapidly, with Holmes promising marriage, European travel, art lessons, and children. Meanwhile, he maneuvered her into transferring her Fort Worth property to "Alexander Bond" (actually Holmes himself), who then transferred it to "Benton T. Lyman" (actually Benjamin Pitezel, Holmes's assistant).
Holmes, sensing Anna's growing suspicions about his dealings with Minnie, suggested that Minnie invite her sister to Chicago to see the world's fair at his expense. Anna arrived from Midlothian, Texas in mid-June 1893 to visit her sister and "Brother Harry." The couple showed Anna Chicago's sights, including the Union Stock Yards where they witnessed the efficient but horrifying slaughter of hogs. At the World's Fair, they toured the magnificent buildings and attractions, with Holmes promising to bring them back for the July 4th fireworks.
On July 4, 1893, Holmes, Minnie, and Anna joined the enormous crowd at the fair. As darkness fell, a "black sea" of people waited restlessly along the Lake-Front, "massed a hundred deep" for half a mile. The crowd cheered wildly for everything-when the exposition orchestra played "Home Sweet Home," when the palaces became outlined in gold, when searchlights swept the crowd, and when colorful plumes erupted from the MacMonnies Fountain.
Afterward, Holmes made an astonishingly generous offer to Minnie and Anna-promising a grand tour to Milwaukee, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, New York, and eventually Europe. The next morning, Holmes took Anna alone to tour his World's Fair Hotel in Englewood, while Minnie readied their apartment for the next tenant. When Anna entered Holmes's walk-in vault, he quietly closed the door behind her and filled the vault with gas to ensure her death.
Chapter 8
The Wheel and the Flames: Triumph and Tragedy
While Holmes pursued his dark designs, a young Pittsburgh engineer named George Ferris was creating what would become the fair's most iconic attraction. Despite initial rejection and the Ways and Means Committee's reversal of their approval (calling his structure a "monstrosity"), Ferris spent $25,000 on detailed drawings and specifications that convinced prominent engineers to invest.
In January 1893, Ferris battled the elements with dynamite to penetrate the frozen ground, then confronted the ice-cold quicksand beneath. His workers used steam jets to thaw dirt and prevent cement from freezing as they drove timber piles thirty-two feet down to reach solid footing for the eight 140-foot towers that would support his wheel. Though steel acquisition initially worried Ferris, his industry connections and inspection company proved invaluable in sourcing the 100,000 precision parts required.
On June 9, as dusk approached, Ferris's wheel turned for the first time. When the engineer engaged the drive gears, loose nuts, bolts, and wrenches rained from the structure-inevitable oversights from the 28,416 pounds of bolts used in construction. The wheel took twenty minutes to complete its first revolution. On June 21, fifty-one days behind schedule, the Ferris Wheel officially opened to the public. The Iowa State Marching Band played from one of the fully glazed cars while Mayor Harrison, Bertha Palmer, and city officials joined Ferris on the platform.
Ferris had created more than an engineering novelty-he had conjured an entirely new physical sensation. From the highest point, 264 feet above ground, passengers fell silent as the true power of the experience became apparent. The view was "so grand that all timidity left me," one rider wrote, with the harbor dotted with vessels, the sunset casting gleams upon the scenery, and the entire park an intricate landscape of color, texture, and motion.
The Ferris Wheel quickly became the most popular attraction of the exposition. In early July, Ferris sold over 61,000 tickets in a week, earning nearly $14,000 in operating profit. Despite unfounded rumors of suicides and accidents, the wheel's safety features proved vital during emergencies.
On July 10, as Burnham supervised repairs from a recent storm, smoke began rising from the Cold Storage Building tower. The tower, lacking a crucial "thimble" component to extend the smokestack properly, had become a deadly trap. When firefighters led by Captain Fitzpatrick climbed to battle the blaze, burning debris ignited a fire in the space between the iron stack and tower walls. This created a superheated plasma that exploded when fresh air rushed in, trapping the men on the balcony. In the ensuing tragedy, fifteen people died, including Fitzpatrick. A coroner's jury charged Burnham with criminal negligence, though many considered this an outrage.
Despite these challenges, the fair's attendance began to surge. By June's end, daily paid attendance had more than doubled to 89,170 from May's dismal 37,501. Hotels filled from Englewood to the Loop, and the Woman's Building's Roof Garden Cafe now served two thousand daily visitors.
Chapter 9
The Fair's End and Holmes's Unmasking
As October progressed, fair attendance rose dramatically as people realized time was running short. On October 22, paid attendance reached 138,011, jumping to 244,127 just two days later. Twenty thousand people daily rode the Ferris Wheel, 80 percent more than at the month's start.
On Chicago Day, October 9, 1893, the fair achieved unprecedented success. By 10 AM, ticket-takers at just one gate had recorded 60,000 paid admissions. Mayor Harrison had proclaimed a citywide holiday, courts and businesses closed, and perfect weather drew enormous crowds. By day's end, an astounding 716,881 people had passed through the gates-the largest single-day attendance of any world's fair. The Chicago Tribune argued this proved Americans would support the fair if given the chance. Best of all, the day's receipts put the exposition firmly in the black financially, ensuring it would not end in debt.
But tragedy would mar the fair's triumphant conclusion. On October 28, Mayor Harrison addressed a gathering of fair officials, declaring "Look at it now, the dream of its creators realized." That night, while at home after dinner, Harrison answered his doorbell to find Patrick Prendergast, a mentally unstable 24-year-old who shot him three times. "Lock me up," Prendergast told police, claiming Harrison had promised him a corporation counsel position.
The Exposition Company canceled the jubilant closing ceremony, replacing it with a somber memorial assembly in the fair's Festival Hall. Instead of jubilant celebrations, the fair ended with a solemn ceremony in the cold Festival Hall where an organist played Chopin's "Funeral March." At exactly 4:45 pm at sunset, the warship Michigan fired twenty-one cannon shots as one thousand men simultaneously lowered all the exposition's flags. Two hundred thousand tearful visitors joined in singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "America."
The White City's magic quickly faded as economic reality returned. The fair's closure left thousands unemployed, and homeless men began living among the abandoned palaces. By January 1894, the once-magnificent buildings stood soiled and deteriorating. On July 5, 1894, arsonists set fire to the fair's seven greatest palaces. From downtown buildings, people watched as flames rose a hundred feet into the night sky. The Chicago Tribune noted there was "no regret, rather a feeling of pleasure that the elements and not the wrecker should wipe out the spectacle of the Columbian season."
Meanwhile, Holmes had fled Chicago with Benjamin Pitezel and his new fiancee, Georgiana Yoke, after setting fire to the top floor of his castle and filing a fraudulent insurance claim. In 1894, Holmes and Pitezel executed an insurance fraud scheme that went horribly wrong when Holmes actually murdered Pitezel rather than faking his death as planned. More disturbing still, Holmes took custody of three of Pitezel's five children-Alice (15), Nellie (11), and Howard (8)-and disappeared with them.
Detective Frank Geyer, a twenty-year veteran of Philadelphia's police force, took on the case in June 1895. Following a trail of hotel registrations and rental properties across multiple cities, Geyer discovered Holmes had orchestrated an elaborate charade-keeping Alice, Nellie and Howard just three blocks away from their mother Carrie and siblings Dessie and baby Wharton in Detroit, without either group knowing the others were so near.
On July 7, 1895, Geyer's investigation led to a breakthrough in Toronto. In the cellar of a house Holmes had rented, they discovered the bodies of Alice and Nellie Pitezel. The children had been buried nude, with Nellie's feet amputated-Holmes's attempt to remove evidence of her clubfoot. Later, Geyer found Howard's charred remains in Indianapolis.
Holmes stood trial in Philadelphia in 1895 for Benjamin Pitezel's murder. Though District Attorney Graham brought witnesses from across the country, the judge limited evidence to only the Pitezel case. The trial featured grisly testimony about decomposition and chloroform, with Holmes showing remarkable indifference throughout. Carrie Pitezel's testimony about seeing her children's bodies in the Toronto morgue moved the courtroom to tears.
Found guilty and sentenced to death, Holmes confessed to killing twenty-seven people, though the true number remains unknown. Before his May 7, 1896 execution, Holmes arranged for his body to be encased in cement to prevent theft or scientific study. His grave in Holy Cross Cemetery remains unmarked, recorded only as "ten feet of cement" on Lazarus Avenue.
Chapter 10
Legacy of Light and Shadow
The Fair had a powerful and lasting impact on the nation's psyche. It influenced Walt Disney, L. Frank Baum's Oz, Frank Lloyd Wright's designs, and established Columbus Day as a national holiday. Every carnival since has included a Midway and Ferris Wheel, while grocery stores contain products born at the exposition. The fair demonstrated that cities could be beautiful, not just practical. It launched the City Beautiful movement, with Burnham applying its principles to Cleveland, San Francisco, Manila, and Washington D.C.
After the fair, the key figures met varied fates. Olmsted's health deteriorated as dementia took hold. He spent his final years in McLean Asylum, which he had designed, lamenting "they didn't carry out my plan." George Ferris initially profited from his wheel, but financial troubles mounted. After separating from his wife, he died of typhoid at 37, his ashes unclaimed. The wheel was eventually dynamited in 1906 after one final exposition. Buffalo Bill made a million dollars but later went broke and died penniless. Theodore Dreiser married Sara White but cheated repeatedly.
Burnham himself lived only until June 1, 1912, dying of complications from diabetes, colitis, and infection. Just before his death, he had sailed on the Olympic hoping for news of his friend Frank Millet, who was aboard the Titanic. Burnham lost not only Millet but also William Stead, who years earlier had warned about insufficient lifeboats on ocean liners. Burnham and his wife Margaret are buried in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery, near John Root, the Palmers, Louis Sullivan, Mayor Harrison, and other prominent Chicagoans from the fair era.
The Devil in the White City captures a pivotal moment in American history-when the nation stood between its rough frontier past and its modern future. The fair's classical architecture became controversial when Louis Sullivan later condemned it as killing American architecture, though modern historians recognize it as awakening America to beauty and laying foundations for modernist architects. The White City represented America's aspirations for order, beauty, and progress, while Holmes embodied the dark undercurrents of modernity-anonymity, deception, and predation.
Together, Burnham and Holmes represent two faces of American ambition-one building toward a dream of civic grandeur, the other constructing an architecture of death. Their parallel stories reveal how the same forces that created unprecedented opportunity and wonder in the rapidly industrializing nation also generated new forms of exploitation and evil. The gleaming White City and the sinister "Murder Castle" stood just miles apart, twin monuments to human potential for creation and destruction at the dawn of the modern age.
