The Billion Dollar Hoax: THE FINALE - Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 [Part 3]

As if this story can't get any more bizarre...

If you just landed on this article, you really should start with Part 1 of this series so you can learn what history is claiming about the fair - history which is avoided in high school text books and never discussed in the modern-day media; history which history would like to be forgotten and never looked into, we must ask “Why? Why bury such a historic event?”.

In Part 2 we discussed the massive transfer of wealth that occurred in the 24 months leading up to the fair - and when I say massive, I am not being hyperbolic. The amount of tax money and minted coinage given to the fair men is equal to over $1.6 billion in today’s currency value… all for a fair which was to last less than six months.

Also in Part 2, we began analyzing historic photographs of the event and realized they are actually art - amazing art, but nonetheless art. The seemingly genuine photos which do exist do not show the magnificent buildings depicted in the art.

At quick glance, they really do look like photographs…

But upon close inspection, they are indeed art:

The more we looked, the less sense it made. The reason why history wishes to have this history be forgotten was beginning to take shape. Now here we are, asking ourselves, “if this event never took place, how did they pull it off?”…

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Wanna listen to this article instead of read? You’ll miss all of the screenshots and photos but here you go:

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Hypothetically speaking, let’s say you wanted to hoax the population with an event which you had no intention of actually throwing, or let's say you do plan to throw it, but it will be a small event, no different than any other fair, yet you need to intake a massive transfer of wealth by claiming it will be a grandiose function, how would you do it?

Step 1: Control Outgoing Media

On top of all of the other “oddities” surrounding the fair, there was a no-photo policy. Yep, taking pictures was not allowed unless you paid the fee of $2; four times the cost of admission! Although $2 may not sound like a lot of money, it is equivalent to almost $40 today! This policy was used to explain why so few photographs of the event exist. The media that does exist has been provided by hand-selected sources, thus controlling all outgoing media. Interestingly, in a matter of years, the first World War would occur. As soon as the War kicked off, the government legislated a No Photos policy in which hand-selected media outlets were the only providers of War photography. The same family names involved with the war were those involved with the fair. More on the war photographers coming soon, but for now, let’s get back to the fair.

When going through historic news archives, I was unable to find a legitimate marketing campaign in the paper for this fair. Wouldn’t you think there would be a huge effort to market such a massive event? Not running a gigantic media campaign in every newspaper is illogical, especially when you consider the people involved with the fair owned most of the papers and could have ran campaigns free of charge. Although I couldn’t locate any legitimate advertising campaign, I did come across a news clip from 1892 about New York artists working with the Columbia Exposition’s art department.

At the time, New York had many of the best artists in the world. Is it fluke that the images of the Exposition are so realistic, the entirety of society, to this very day, mistakes them for photos?

Step 2: Control the Premises

Remember, the fair was under six months long, so all you have to do is keep people out of the area from May until October 30th. After that, you’re home free!

For starters, selecting an area which was so-called “unusable swamp” would imply the areas surrounding it are also swampland. Should the promoters decide to do some marketing in the paper and a casual reader of New Jersey news sees there is a fair being built on swampland in Chicago, would they bother traveling there? Are there even any hotels to stay at? Keep in mind, there were no airplanes, therefore a lengthy train ride would have been the only option. Would you travel eight or more hours by rail to visit a swampland fair?

Leading up to the fair, in 1893, the newspapers reported on The GREAT Fire of 1871; an unexplainable and highly suspicious fire which quickly consumed the city, incinerating stone, burning through iron and steel, and reducing marble to ash, but a quick glance at the deceptive headline would lead one to believe this was a second massive fire:

“Fireproof buildings melted like wax”, reported the news.

While rerunning tales of the old fire, new fire reports were mixed in. It was said this new fire was the second largest since the fire of 1871.

This would lead the reader to believe the city was currently either up in flames or burnt to the ground, either way, there would be nothing to see…

This second fire was claimed to have been caused by a lamp…

…it was reported the lamp caused 150 houses to go up in flames and it just so happened that the coal docks, which were filled with coal, also caught fire, as did the lumber yard, identical to the 1871 fire.

The papers also reported physical altercations over food were occurring because so many homeless people were desperate to eat.

Does this sound like a place you want to go to?

Step 3: Make it Unaffordable to Most

Hosting the event during a time of crisis in an area of crisis would be key. The Panic of 1893 began that February and lasted eight months, ending in October. The fair opened in May and closed in October. Remember, because of The Crime of 1873, silver was made off-limits to citizens (then we sent it all to China). This put us on The Gold Standard, which was now the only standard. In a matter of years, the government reported gold reserves had fallen dangerously low. This caused panic. Let me give you some quotes regarding how hard Chicago was hit during The Panic: “The Panic of 1893 had significant impacts on Illinois, particularly in Chicago. In a nutshell, people attempted to redeem silver notes for gold; ultimately, the statutory limit for the minimum amount of gold in federal reserves was reached, and U.S. Notes could no longer be successfully redeemed for gold”. This meant in 1893, when silver could not be redeemed for gold, people were stuck with expensive, silver paperweights instead of usable tender. The inability to access money led to severe unemployment and widespread wage reductions.

By July (less than two months after the fair was opened), at least 20% of the population of Illinois was unemployed. The news informed the public, in Chicago alone, “one hundred thousand people were sleeping in the streets due to the economic downturn” - that is approximately 10% of the total population per the 1890 census. The Panic also caused stocks to fall. “During the summer of 1893, commercial, industrial, and manufacturing depression accompanied the financial panic” - If you wanted to come here for the fair, could you afford it? Admission was 50-cents per person, equal to nearly $18 today, and this doesn’t include food, drinks, activities, transportation or a hotel. And if you could afford it, would you be willing to spend money during a time like this? And could you even access money with the gold reserves being depleted?

Despite the implosion of the economy, it is said the Columbian Exposition was a very busy event, with over 27 million patrons visiting. This is fascinating because the entire population of the United States, according to the 1890 Census, was under 63 million. This means nearly half of the entire population of the nation attended this fair… during a financial crisis… at a time where at least 20% of the entire nation was unemployed, banks went bust, stocks tanked, silver couldn’t be redeemed for gold, and businesses were rapidly closing…

Step 4: Make it Difficult

As mentioned previously, the second GREAT fire caused extreme damage to Chicago. Being that the fair was on a swamp, we must assume there were few roadways to get to it; perhaps only one or two? How many of those roads were closed due to the fire? Wouldn’t it be interesting if it was all of them? But that’s not all. When the Panic hit, “Businesses failed, and several major railroads, with Chicago as their transportation hub, went into receivership with control handed over to the state and federal courts in bankruptcy”. Ah, ok, so the government now controlled the trains running in and out of Chicago. The papers reported the bankruptcy of these railways caused further “widespread economic turmoil”.

I should also mention, in exchange for the government agreeing to provide millions of dollars in funding, the fair men had to agree to be closed on Sundays, which happens to be the day most people could visit because most of the population (those who still had jobs) were off work that day. This means patrons would have to visit Monday through Saturday only. If you were one of the lucky ones who still had employment, would you be willing to ask your employer for a few days off to attend a fair? And would you be willing to ask this during a time when 1,000 other men are begging to take your place?

Step 5: Make it Dangerous

What if I told you the fair itself was on fire? Yep, they claim the fair itself partially went up in flames less than two months after it opened. Here are the “photos” showing the Cold Storage Building exploding:

At a minimum, this image has been heavily edited. At a maximum, it is complete fraud in which a different photo or a cut-and-paste combination of photos were used to create this image. We know it has been edited because the words Cold Storage and the fire above the words are not real:

I wonder why the flag is not waving when the smoke is pulling to the right, thus implying wind? The flag in the background is completely horizontal…

It is quite possible it is all pencil drawing and paint. Regardless of if the photo is real, partially real or completely fake, they tell us firefighters worked hard to battle the blaze:

They claim the fire-explosion was so severe, many people lost their lives. Now the fair was a tragedy. Do you want to go to a dangerous place where innocent people were just killed, in an explosion of all things?

Looking at the photos, I couldn’t help but remember back to my article I mentioned earlier about faking historic photos, in which I showed painted water being ejected from hoses:

And I don’t know if any of these people are real. This is a very odd way to hold a hose shooting a tall, powerful stream of water:

And what is this guy’s arm doing?

Even the fire damage “photos” are art:

With the nation in economic turmoil and the fair premises secure, it was now time to create documentation which would be released to the public through the hand-selected channels...

THE OUTGOING MEDIA RELEASE

The vast majority of images are indeed art, but there are some photos of the Columbian Exposition which do seem to be photos, which would absolutely prove the fair was real, or, at a minimum, that these amazing buildings did exist, right?

These built-in-20-months-on-a-swamp buildings look real, don’t they?

If this isn’t art, and if it isn’t cut-and-paste “photoshop”, how can these images be explained?

Let’s see if we can come up with a theory…

What if we take one of these photos and adjust the contrast? What does this look like to you?

I’ll tell you what it looks like to me…

…a model… look again, closely:

If the buildings were tabletop models and the people are drawn in and “photo shopped”, incredible cities could be photographed…

Before you roll your eyes and say this is preposterous, this is exactly how the movies Alien (1979), Ghostbusters (1984), Dune (1984), Batman (1989), Universal Soldier (1992), Stargate (1994), Godzilla (1998), The Fifth Element (1997), Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Independence Day (1996), as well as shows like Star Trek were filmed. They used small models.

Even shows like Thomas the Tank Engine (which my kids were obsessed with), were filmed using tabletop cityscapes.

This is also how NASA’s contractor, Wonder Works, creates “award winning experiences” for photography and film. Screenshots from their site:

…hmmmm…

How hard would it be to build a miniature city when you were given the equivalent of over $1.6 billion in cash on top of truckloads of assorted precious metals and coinage?

It looks so real, doesn’t it?

What if I took the above photo of a model and made it black and white and threw some blur on it, a little shading on the edges? Would you believe this is a photo from the late 1800s if I told you it was?

How much history could be generated this way?

If you have a mix of tabletop models, the best artists in New York and professional photographers who are masters of “photo shop”, you could easily create what appears to be a photo…

…and simply paint in the people….

….after the grass has been skillfully added…

…once the artistic piece is complete…

…photograph the art and develop it to create a photograph accompanied by a legitimate photo negative…

…and who would have thought, 132 years after the fair, people would be analyzing it?

This same process can be repeated to create enough evidence to eliminate questions.

Trying to track down legitimate construction photos of this event is basically impossible. The few that do exist, such as the two shown below, are both illustrations from “Campbells Illustrated History of the World’s Columbian Exposition”:

Here’s other construction “photos”

This appears to be a mixed media piece, with photography in the foreground and an illustration in the background:

Same with this one; the magnificent buildings look like pencil art:

Photos, which appear to be genuine photos, don’t actually show anything

Why wasn’t there a photographer hired to shoot the progress?

I don’t trust any of these images, but here’s one that looks like it might be a real photo, but it doesn’t show “construction” and this is not one of the huge, marvelous buildings.

CASHING IN

And, as if this story can’t get any more bizarre, historians claim, “While specific financial figures regarding the total revenue generated by the exposition are not explicitly mentioned, the fair was considered a significant economic success”. Other historians state the fair grossed $28,340,700, out of that profit was only $446,832, with much of it coming from the 1.5 million Ferris Wheel tickets which were sold “throughout the fair”, more than the population of Chicago at the time. History also claims a single ticket to the ride was 50 cents, making it as expensive as admission to the fair (equal to $18 today). This means a single admission to the fair and one spin on the Wheel would set you back the equivalent of approximately $40 in today’s currency - quite a lot in a time of crisis.

But does $28,340,700 gross come close to covering the costs? Once you consider all the monies given by governments (“not a penny less than $45,250,000”) then factor in the 50,000 architects, the building costs which included excavating a swamp and making roads, 75 million board feet of lumber, 18,000 tons of iron and steel, 120,000 incandescent lights, the cost of running electricity throughout the massive premises, all of the marble and glass (which were amongst the most expensive building materials of the 1890’s), plaster and paint, the cost to build a restaurant with seating for 7,000, importing trees, fresh water to replace the swamp water for the lagoons, hundreds of organizers, “40,000 skilled laborers and workers”, tens-of-thousands of assorted employees to create or work the event, paying New York artists and “America's most famous landscape artist”, hell, just the demolition crew was paid $200,000 (worth almost a million dollars today), the 7.5 million spent on minting currency that was supposed to be sold at a profit but wasn’t, not to mention the unknown amount of taxpayer money spent on minting all of the metals to be used as assorted gifts… the $28 million grossed doesn’t seem to scratch the surface of the cost. You end up with a gaping loss, but would you be surprised to learn most, if not all, of these fairs netted a loss? Yep, they lost huge amounts of money, yet country after country, state after state, kept signing up to throw them… and they all just so happened to be hosted during historic economic tragedies. I look forward to telling you about the fairs thrown during the Civil War because those are also sketchy AF.

The excuse history gives us regarding why these net-loss fairs kept being thrown is “good publicity”. One would think if the purpose was publicity, the event would be accompanied by a large marketing campaign. One would think if the goal is to spread the word, cameras would be welcomed and allowed in for free. Now, do you want to guess who was “performing banking activities” at the 1893 Columbian Exposition? None other than JP Morgan.

The Columbian Exposition would be demolished by the Chicago House Wrecking Crew, who raked in $200,000 for their services. Their own brochure stated they were forced to sign contracts and adhere to terms that were not common. Further research reveals these “contracts” were likely nondisclosure agreements, meaning, the dynamite crew was not allowed to discuss anything relating to the (alleged) destruction of the Fair.

Wanna hear something crazy? According to history, the Wrecking Crew took down all structures and shipped them to Kansas City….

I suppose this would explain why the premises was spotless with no trace of the Fair left behind, except for the Museum of Science and Industry building?

Regarding the swampland, wouldn’t it make so much more sense to find flat land that doesn’t require battling mushy, black water, insects and limited (if any) roadways? Wouldn’t it make sense to throw a smaller, yet profitable event? Forego the genuine marble, curved glass and 400 foot tall structures to cut costs? Wouldn’t it make sense to skip directors medals and gifts for architects if the fair is projected to lose money because damn near all of them do?

The ticket booth is also a remnant from the fair. Out of all the buildings, this is quite an odd thing for the wrecking crew to leave standing, but leaving behind a ticket booth absolutely proves the event took place… right?

In closing, I have no idea what the deal with this fair was, but as a researcher, none of the evidence fits with the narrative and there is a reason we are not taught about these fairs in history class (or ever). For whatever reason, history wants them forgotten and therefore not researched.

To close out this series, I thought you would find this of interest…

THE INSCRIPTION

At the fair was a marvelous focal-point entranceway, and on that entranceway was an inscription… a quite peculiar inscription, especially for a fair…

…that inscription says…

”Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”….

… of course, that too is art…

Did you enjoy this series? If so, please support my work! I try really hard to bring you content you haven’t seen elsewhere and this takes a lot of time. Donations and subscriptions give me the ability to access newspaper archives and afford subscriptions to paywalled websites that contain the information I need to produce content like this series.

Although that was the finale of the series, we’re not actually done yet. This next article is a crossover article that just might shed some light on the World’s Fairs photos…

NEXT READ: THE MYSTERY POST OFFICES - Mindf*ck Monday episode 5

Yep, I FINALLY wrote a fifth installment to the series that will bend your mind so far it might break, and it just might be the most mind blowing article of 2025. Stay tuned!

NEXT READ:

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SOURCES, NOTES & OTHER STUFF

I found a construction photo that could be a photo but if you look at it, it doesn’t really show “construction”.