I was researching the preparations for the World’s Fair, in particular what it took to assemble the colossal statue of the Republic, when I bumped into one of Olmsted’s ideas for livening up the water ways—Swans. In the frantic preparations just before the fair, in the harsh spring weather, things didn’t go quite as planned.
Among the flood of boxes and exhibits pouring into the fairgrounds in April, there were two crates. When the teamsters heard noises, they took the crates over to the director of the Fancy Poultry Bureau in agriculture. They weren’t for the exhibits though. They were to liven up the lagoons. Unfortunately, one crate held one live white swan and one dead one. Their container of water was bone dry. For a time, the one surviving swan couldn’t be persuaded to leave its dead mate. The other crate contained a pair of black swans that were not only alive but feisty. They nipped the hands of anyone who got near them.
The black swans were finally released into the Grand Basin just in time for a big front to start blowing down Lake Michigan from the north. I’ll let the reporter of the Inter Ocean tell their saga.
Inter Ocean April 19, 1893 “Swans Learn a Thing or Two” The two black swans that were shipped to Jackson Park on Monday are sadder but wiser birds today. They had a half hour’s argument with the billows of Lake Michigan yesterday afternoon, and they got decidedly the worst of it. The birds were swimming around in the basin east of the administration building and were disporting themselves gracefully and much to the enjoyment of a number of visitors. Suddenly an electric lauch shot out in the basin, and the swans had a narrow escape from being fun over. That was their first trial, and the second came when they decided to venture beyond the confines of the basin and out on the lake.
Under the peristyle the swans glided, and it wasn’t long before they saw their mistake. They can manage their craft on still waters and rippling streams, but it gets beyond their control when they put out into the Great Lakes. Lake Michigan was choppy, and the birds headed due east. They proceeded single file, and the wind caught the one in the lead full under the prow and upset him. He tumbled over onto his companion, and the big wave sent them both under.ppThat was a new experience for the swans, but, nothing daunted, they tried to go out again, only to meet with the same experience. Then they decided to go north instead of east, and this time they were blown over sideways, ducked under the waves, and spun around like a top, all in a minute or two. The birds were mystified, but they didn’t have time to think about what the matter might be, as they were too busy trying to stay right side up on the water.
Suddenly a bigger wave than the rest turned them due west, and, do what they would, they could not save themselves from being washing ashore. Going in this direction they had even a harder time of it than before. Every incoming wave would send them whirling before it, and just as they seemed about to land the undertow would take them out again. Finally the rear bird was washed clear over the other and onto dry land while its mate got all mixed up with the surf. For a few seconds nothing but neck and legs could be seen above water, but the next wave put the struggling bird ashore. With feathers rumpled and an air of complete dejection, it was a sorry looking pair of black swans than an employee of the fair led back to the inland basin.
In fairness to the swans, it was a start of a gale that blew off 250 feet of glass from the top of the Manufacturing and Liberal Arts Building, leaving the French and Belgian exhibits in their crates standing in three inches of water. The building, the largest indoor structure in the world until they built the Astrodome, stood on a thick slab of concrete. The fastest solution they could think of to clear out the water was to take an augur to drill holes through the concrete slab to drain the water into the sand below.
Apparently, Olmsted et al. brought in more swans, and, as the summer went on, they clearly found that the best place to be is the lagoon where the Canada geese hang out now—the Columbian Basin south of the Palace of Fine Arts/Museum of Science and Industry. They don’t appear in any other photos.
In July 1893, Teresa Dean, wrote into the Inter Ocean about her experience at the fair. She found a quiet place to sit under the awning of the Marine Café, sipping coffee, and watching five swans fight over pieces of bread that her waiter had tossed to them. (Inter Ocean July 19, 1893). She was grateful to find a relatively quiet corner of the fair. She described how, sitting there, she could see a person from the Japanese Tea House next door fishing in the lagoon, look across the red and gold Japanese bridge to the Japanese pavilion on Wooded Island, watch the Venetians steering the gondolas as they quietly passed by, and notice some Ceylonese walking by. “I thought no matter what anyone wanted it had all come—the world itself had come to Chicago.”
I love the last line!