The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America Part II, Chapter 3 Summary

Vexed

  • Back at Jackson Park, Burnham and the architects only have seven months left (roughly the amount of time it takes today to build a new garage in a home).
  • Outside of the park, people are becoming excited.
  • Sol Bloom, a twenty-one-year-old entrepreneur from San Francisco, sees the fair as an opportunity to display a village he bought at the Paris Exposition two years earlier. Yes folks, the dude bought a village.
  • Burnham makes plans to increase the size of the police force, and creates the Columbian Guard to protect against any conceivable threats to the fair. He also creates a special fire department to be on the fair grounds at all times.
  • A few deaths occur during construction, but the biggest threat is the delay in construction.
  • The fair is way behind schedule, and a few parts of the plans are still undetermined.