CHICAGO FAIR WRECKED

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 December 1934, Page 11

CHICAGO FAIR WRECKED

POLICEMAN THROWN INTO LAKE. CHICAGO, November 2. Wild rioting by Hallow-e’en revellers brought the great Chicago World’s Fair to an end in the early hours of this morning. An enormous crowd tore down buildings, did other damage, and flung several policemen and thousands of chairs and benches into the lake. The plans to close down at midnight and switch off the lights which were turned on two years ago with a ray from the star Arcturus were abandoned by the officials when it was found that 300,000 people were still in the grounds. Towards dawn they began to regert this course, for mobs of merrymakers, after consuming all the drinks they could lay their hands on, started to destroy everything within their reach. Women fainted and many injured people had to be taken to hospital. Popular indignation ran high when the dancers at some of the side-shows refused to appear after the audience had destroyed the decorations and fittings. The lifts running to the top of the sixty-four-storey observation tower of the overhead railway were stopped when empty bottles flung by passengers began to shower down.

The. damage was not all done by men, for women forced their way into the Agricultural Building and carried off a number of valuable plans. The total number of visitors, in the two seasons during which the Fair had been open reached nearly 30,000,000. The 16,000,000r.h visitor this year entered the ground at 1.10 a.m. She was little grey-haired widow, Mrs. Helen Reid, of Chicago.

It is estimated that this £10,000,000 Fair has brought nearly £200,000,000 worth of business into Chicago.