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Louisiana Purchase: Louisiana Purchase Exposition
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It is generally agreed that after the Revolution and the Civil War, the Louisiana Purchase is the greatest fact in American history. In 1904 a world's fair, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, was held at St Louis in commemoration of the cession. After one hundred years the wilderness then acquired had become the centre of the power and wealth of the Union. It contained in 1903 15,000,000 inhabitants, and its taxable wealth alone was four hundred times the fifteen millions given to Napoleon.
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The 1904 World's Fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition) marked the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, a monumental event in U.S. history. Fair organizers set out to celebrate that event and create their own monumental event. It seemed appropriate to set the Fair in St. Louis Missouri, at that time the fourth largest city in the country and part of the land covered by the Treaty.
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The State of Louisiana had contributed to the Exposition a building of much historical interest in its reproduction of the famous Cabildo, in which the transfer of the Louisiana Purchase was consummated in 1803. The building, adjoining that of the Government, was erected at a cost of $22,000, and was the exact size of the original, 95 by 107 feet, but was more than a replica, the actual doors and roof the old Spanish structure were removed and brought to St. Louis for the new Cabildo. The interior was ornamented with choice paintings, some of them old masters brought to America by Joseph Bonapart. There were portraits of Livingston, Monroe and Marbois, who signed the treaty between France and the United States, and of Jefferson, Napoleon, Salcedo, Laussat, Wilkinson and Claiborne; and there was a painting showing New Orleans as it was in 1803. In the collection of antique furniture in the building were two priceless pieces, -- Napoleon's china-cabinet and the desk on which the treaty of 1803 was signed. Above the desk hung a facsimile of the great treaty that meant so much to the nation, and whose centennial anniversary the Exposition celebrated.
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Three stamps feature men who were intimately involved in the Louisiana Purchase (1803): U.S. Ambassador to France Robert Livingston, Secretary of State James Monroe, and President Thomas Jefferson. The 1-cent stamp shows a map of the Louisiana Purchase, the first map to appear on a U.S. stamp. The subject of the 5-cent stamp depicts William McKinley, who had nothing to do with the Louisiana Purchase. He earned his place on the stamp because he was the president who signed the legislation giving federal sanction to the Exposition. This stamp essentially became a memorial to McKinley, who was assassinated in 1901.
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The event commemorated by the St. Louis Exposition was the purchase of the Louisiana territory from France under the Administration of President Thomas Jefferson in 1803. It was the acquisition of an empire by the processes of peace and diplomacy, startling to the civilized world. Its magnitude and full significance were not appreciated at the time, but looking back over the one hundred years of development of this vast area, embracing so much of our country west of the Mississippi, none fails to recognize in the event a sufficient inspiration for the unsurpassed exposition held in the chief city within the purchased territory. Read the entire Treaty.
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Louisiana Purchase Exposition