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World's Fair Panorama.

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Chicago fought for and won the honor of hosting the 1893 Columbian Exposition, or World’s Fair, and the exposition’s popularity led to a revival of Classical styling in architecture.

The fairgrounds, Daniel Burnham’s White City, stood in stark contrast to the swampland on which it sat and to Chicago’s reputation as a backwater hog capital. Money, people, and businesses flowed into the city. 

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Building Site History

© John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation