Lee  Gaskins'   AT THE FAIR  The 1904 St. Louis World's   Fair  
                     Web  Design and Art/Illustration   copyrighted  2008 
Festival Hall-  A cropped digital art, painted ala acrylics  by  Lee Gaskins
The Festival Hall  was the centerpiece of the  Main View at the Fair. 
It's breathtaking architecture was the single-most photographed building.
It's exterior was designed by Cass Gilbert of New York, the building was
200 feet in diameter and 200 feet high. The Festival Hall's grand dome 
was reportedly  larger than St. Peter's basilica in Rome. Evelyn 
Longman's “Victory” statue, stood  on top of the Festival Hall.

Gilbert  was also an architecture juror at the 1893 World's Columbian 
Exposition in Chicago. 

Inside, the  auditorium contained seats for 3,500 people (some references
say 4,500),  and a stage large enough for hundreds of  musicians and 
choir.  The Chief of Design of the Exposition, E. L. Masqueray, of New
York,  created the building's interior.

The Festival Hall was entered  as an exhibit through the Palace of  Liberal Arts.

he East and West Cascade Restaurants, (similar in 
design and in beauty),  which could each seat 1,200 
patrons bookended  the Festival Hall. Behind the 
Festival Hall was the Colonnade of States, which  
featured a monument to the thirteen states and the 
`Indian Territory' that was gained by the United States 
from the  Louisiana Purchase.  

In front of the Festival Hall were the Cascades located
in front of Festival Hall and the Grand Basin. Pumps 
pushed  45,000 gallons of water a minute  through  
man-made falls into the Grand Basin.  

The Festival Hall  cost  218,430 dollars  to build, was the home to the world’s largest pipe organ, and was built by Murray M. Harris Organ Company of Los Angeles California, under the patents of W.B. Fleming. The massive instrument had 10,059 pipes and was capable of 17,179,869,183 distinct tonal effects. 

The organ needed 14 train cars to transport the Festival Hall's musical showpiece to the Fair.

Though the organ was  played upon daily by celebrated organists such as  M. Alexandre Guilmant of Paris,  Edwin H. Lemare, and Mr. Clarence Eddy, of New York; Charles Galloway, of St. Louis, was the official organist.  The admission to all organ recitals was 10 cents.  Special eighty-piece orchestral concerts  cost 25 cents. 
A cropped & modified postcard
Main
FESTIVAL  HALL
Festival Hall interior.