In 1884, with the Civil War and Reconstruction in the rearview mirror, New Orleans boosters were on the move. To showcase the city’s progress, they threw out the welcome mat with the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition. Seen here in this 1884 lithograph is Horticultural Hall, one of the many ornate exhibit buildings constructed for the ill-fated expo that ran from Dec. 17, 1884 to June 1, 1885.
The 1880s was an era when Southern cities like New Orleans tried to upstage each other with bigger and better industrial expositions. Atlanta was first with its International Cotton Exposition of 1881 followed by Louisville’s Southern Exposition in 1883. When New Orleans’ exposition opened a year later, local boosters put the world on notice that Crescent City was ready to compete. It was the city’s commercial and industrial calling card to the world. The exposition’s name is a bit curious, though. Organizers chose the cotton theme to mark the supposed 100th anniversary of America’s first export shipment of cotton.
To raise the money needed to finance the exposition, state treasurer and newspaper publisher Major Edward A. Burke convinced Congress to loan the city $1 million plus a $300,000 gift to build government exhibits. The city anteed up another $100,000 and private stock was sold to raise the rest of the money.
Located in what is now Audubon Park, the exposition sat on 249 acres once part of plantations owned by Pierre Foucher and Etienne de Boré. Unfortunately, most expo buildings and their exhibits were far from completed when on Dec. 17 President Chester A. Arthur pressed a button in the White House that rang a bell at the fairground to signal the start of festivities. According to Clive Hardy’s brief history of the exposition, Horticultural Hall, for example, had only a few plants donated at the last moment by local gardeners. Ready or not, the exposition began with a grand parade, steamboat processions, the Mexican army band, military units and artillery barrage.
Despite the city’s efforts to promote the exposition, newspapers chronicled its problems. Sightseers expected from all over the world did not materialize in the expected numbers. The “conservative estimate” of four million visitors eventually amounted to little more than a million. A month after the exposition opened, it was $250,000 in debt. The following February, the deficit had reached $360,000. Congress appropriated an additional $335,000, but the exposition was forced to close on June 1, 1885.
The expo buildings are long gone. Most were demolished except for Mexico’s cast iron and glass Moorish designed pavilion, which the Mexican government moved to Mexico City. The only survivor on the fairgrounds itself is a large chunk of iron ore from the Alabama exhibit, which for years locals claimed to be a meteorite that landed on the golf course.
Although the exposition was a financial disaster, it accelerated the development of Uptown New Orleans and gave us Audubon Park.
