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. This striking feature was 52 foot high and was a quarter of a mile long. The colonnade cost an additional 59,740 dollars to build. It symbolically represented the success, wisdom and foresight of 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 centerpiece of the Fair, the East and West Cascades represented the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and symbolized man’s control over nature. The Cascades were three in number, the largest of the three is the central Cascade. The water gushed forth from a fountain 24 feet above the level of the terrace, and spread out into a stream 45 feet wide and 14 inches deep, falling down the long slope of ledges or steps, spreading to a width of 150 feet as it took its final plunge into the Grand Basin.
This Grand Basin was semi-circular in shape and 600 feet in diameter.
Four magnificent artificial fountains shot water up to 76 feet high from the Grand Basin
The three Cascades were lined with an massive amount of sculptures from the the top of the hill to the basin. Along the edges of the Cascades, powerful vertical and horizontal jets of water shot from artistic sculptures and fell into the Cascade basin. The Cascades roughly cost 120,000 to build, with another 100,000 dollars in additional costs of staircases and balustrades,* etc.
At night, thousands of lights had been placed on the Hall's exterior and along the Cascades as a
celebration of electricity and combining the classical
artistry of beauty with modernization and invention.
* balustrades are rows of repeating small posts which support the upper rail of a railing.
seepage and evaporation and was operated continuously during the life of the Fair.
The most elaborate formal gardening display was upon the slope that was called the Cascade Gardens, which was located in the southern part of the `central picture,' south of the Grand Basin.
Between the Education and Electricity Palaces, the gardens were half a mile in length, extending in a longsouthern sweep around the end of the Basin and lagoons. The slope was 300 feet wide, and 60 feet high.Between and beyond the Cascades were huge lawns, accented with rich embroideries of flowers. Cementwalks and flights of easy steps provided throughout the vast gardens.
The Colonnade of States stretched east and west of Festival Hall. The large female statues represented the 13 US States that had been ‘carved’ from the Louisiana Purchase and Indian Territory, (which in 1904 was separate from Oklahoma Territory.) The Indian Territory became part of Oklahoma when it was admitted as a state in 1907. The Missouri statue was sculpted by Alexander Stirling Calder.
