Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

by Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

The United States could hardly have done more for the furtherance of the development of the great rich district of Alaska, with its untold wealth in minerals and its great possibilities in agriculture, than it did by securing to the people of Alaska an opportunity to display their resources and products to the inspection of the millions who have visited the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The exhibits shown by them excited the utmost wonder and surprise in the minds of many witnessing them, who had been in ignorance of the resources of their country. Thousands have been led to investigate and seek further information. The effect of the Alaska exhibit will undoubtedly be far-reaching and permanent; nor can it be doubted that Congress will supplement this contribution to Alaska's welfare in the near future by legislation which shall secure the one great need of Alaska—inland transportation.

An appropriation of $50,000 for the Alaskan exhibit at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was made by act of Congress March 3, 1903, as follows:

To enable the inhabitants of the district of Alaska to provide and maintain an appropriate and creditable exhibit of the products and resources of that district at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, in nineteen hundred and four, and to erect and maintain on the site of said exposition a suitable building to be used for the purposes of exhibiting the products and resources of said district, the sum of fifty thousand dollars, to be subject to the order of the Secretary of the Interior, who is hereby authorized to expend the same in such manner as in his judgment will best promote the objects for which said sum is appropriated in accordance with the rules and regulations to be prescribed by him.

After the passage of the act of Congress which made appropriation for the Alaska exhibit, providing that the sum appropriated should be expended by the Secretary of the Interior in such manner as in his judgment would promote the objects for which the sum was appropriated, in accordance with rules and regulations prescribed by him, one of his first acts was the appointment of Hon. Thomas Ryan, First Assistant Secretary of the Interior, chairman of the Alaska commission, to have immediate charge at the Department of the elaboration of the exhibit. Later Governor John G. Brady was appointed executive commissioner, and entered upon the task of gathering together and forwarding to the exposition such collections of exhibits as would best represent and illustrate the products and resources of Alaska.

Still later Mr. Joseph B. Marvin was appointed special agent of the Alaska exhibit and was sent to St. Louis in December, 1903, to superintend the construction of the Alaska Building, to attend to all accounts with the Department, and to arrange for the installation of the exhibits as they arrive.

Mrs. Mary E. Hart was employed January 1, 1904, to assist in the securing of the exhibits in Alaska, especially in the Department of Education, and upon the opening of the exposition Mrs. Hart was directed to proceed to St. Louis, where she was designated as hostess and placed in charge of the bureau of information in the Alaska Building. At the same time attendants were selected, whose duty it was to explain the exhibits to visitors.

The executive commissioner, the honorary commissioners, the hostess, all of the attendants, and those employed in collecting exhibits in Alaska were all Alaskans, the attendants being especially selected because of their acquaintance with Alaska and its products.

It was the desire of the executive commissioner that the utmost hospitality should be shown to all visitors at the Alaska Building, and the commodious and homelike parlors on the second floor of the building were free to the public, maids being employed for special attention to the wants of ladies and children.

The principal exhibits in the Alaska Building related naturally to the mining interest of the country.

One of the most impressive and significant exhibits was a gilded cube, about 3 feet in diameter, representing the size of a block of gold worth $7,200,000, which was the amount paid by the United States to Russia for Alaska, and beside it, inclosed in a brass railing, a gilded pyramid of blocks representing the amount of gold taken each year since 1882 from the Treadwell mine in Alaska, aggregating $21,800,000, a sum which is three times the amount paid for Alaska taken from one mine.