第 7 章
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.
