Serving the public at the Greater America Exposition

The Greater America Exposition is scarcely remembered today. It consisted of the leftovers of the highly successful Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, warmed up and served anew in July 1899. Like other leftover meals, it proved very so-so at best, and closed after three months (a month earlier than planned). Its organizers and promoters, hoping to squeeze a little more money out of the very popular Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, had bought up the buildings that had been constructed for that fair, and, with a bit of rearrangement and extra landscaping, reopened the new Exposition with the theme of colonial empire, celebrating the United States' recent acquisition of the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, attendance was meager and the fair was a miserable failure financially. In fact, it eventually had to declare bankruptcy.

Omaha Daily Bee, 29 Nov. 1899, p. 5. (Digital image, Chronicling America)

Which is probably why the Greater America Exposition is usually mentioned merely as a footnote to discussion of the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition.  Still, it presumably provided employment for some Omahans for a few months.

From the collections of Omaha Public Library

I have been looking at two of them lately: A. W. Logan and Frances Huston. He was a cook, she was a waitress, and they both worked in a department designated as "Bone #153." I know about them because Omaha Public Library has their worker passes in its extensive Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition collection (see what I mean? We don't even have a separate Greater America Exposition collection; it's just part of the Trans-Miss).

I looked for A.W. in the Omaha City Directory, and, sure enough, there he was in the 1900 directory, living at 623 N. 17th Street and working as a cook for Boyles & Bone, which (as I discovered by flipping to the relevant page of the directory) was a restaurant located at 318 S. 16th St. Clearly this restaurant had some kind of  concession at the fair. A.W. was also issued with a "sleeping permit," which allowed him to sleep on the fairgrounds, so obviously this was a pretty life-consuming job while it lasted.

What can we find out about A.W.? His actual first name would be a good start...But he was already gone in the 1901 city directory, and I couldn't find him in the 1900 census. No sign of him in the 1899 directory, either. He may have been just passing through? 

Omaha City Directory, 1900

More research required!

From the collections of Omaha Public Library

Next I looked for Frances Huston, and discovered there is a reason she looks about 10 years old in her picture--she WAS 10 years old. I am pretty certain I have identified Frances as the daughter of William J. Huston, described in the Omaha World Herald as "a well-known restauranteur in Omaha" (30 June 1906). The family appears in the 1900 census (see below) living at 1613 Chicago St., and William's occupation is listed as "Restaurant." 

Omaha's Prospect Hill Cemetery, by Louise Bloom Baumann (1990), provides more information (source not given, unfortunately):  William owned the Hotel Richelieu at 13th and Dodge, as well as four restaurants, including the Antlers at 15th and Dodge and the Climax at 307 N. 16th (which is the address given for his place of work in the 1900 directory). He and his wife, Rosetta, had a food stand at the Trans-Mississippi & International Exposition (according to Louise Baumann), so it makes sense that they might have had one at the Greater America Exposition. And child labor laws were still a vision rather than a reality.... 

1900 Census, Omaha, Douglas Co., Nebraska. Digital image, FamilySearch.org

Frances and her sister, Lillian Agnes, appear in the June, 1903, Register of Central High School, in the roster of the Class of 1906. It appears they may not have made it to graduation, though, since Vol. XVIII (1925) of the Journal of History published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints provides this little tidbit (p. 378) in an article on the Church in Omaha:

If you are wondering about the Mormon connection--it seems (once again, I'm looking at Omaha's Prospect Hill Cemetery) that the girls' maternal grandparents, John and Susanna (Klossner) Agenstein had joined the Mormon Church in their native Switzerland and gone out to Utah, only to be disappointed with the religion--possibly they were not keen on the polygamy aspect of Utah Mormonism. Leaving Utah "under military escort" (this is definitely a story to pursue!), they settled in Omaha around 1876 and joined the Reorganized Church of Latter-Day Saints (a breakaway group that was ideologically opposed to polygamy, as well as disagreeing with a few other tenets of the LDS Church. Read all about it!)  Another interesting note about Susanna is that she and her son John (not clear what happened to husband John) managed a restaurant on the north side of Dodge between 15th and 16th Streets, and she later owned the restaurant Denver at 16th and California Streets. Clearly we're looking at a restauranteur dynasty here....

Nevertheless, it seems a shame to leave school at the tender age of 16, with only a year left to go--especially since, according to the ever-informative Omaha's Prospect Hill Cemetery, Frances's marriage ended in divorce. (Sister Lillian was still a Wrenn at the time of Frances's death in 1972, according to Frances's obituary--8 Oct. 1972--in the Omaha World Herald). Frances married again, twice, but outlived both those husbands by many years. Did she tell her children stories about those weeks she spent waitressing at the Greater America Exposition?