In 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition (commonly referred to as the World’s Fair) was held in Chicago, Illinois. As was common at the time, the state of Missouri sent exhibits to demonstrate its agricultural and geological wealth for the masses. An official catalogue, Missouri at the World’s Fair, was distributed to fairgoers. <\/p>\n
One of the entries in the catalogue was sent by the Joplin Club in an effort to promote the city to new audience outside of what was then commonly referred to as the \u201cThe history of the lead and zinc mining industry of Southwest Missouri is the history of Joplin,\u201d the entry declared, noting that although the city had once been a \u201cstraggling mining camp\u201d it was now \u201ca well-built city of 18,000 souls.\u201d Joplin, it boasted, would not only remain the \u201ccommercial metropolis of the ore fields, but become the great gateway\u2026of the regions lying south and southwest.\u201d <\/p>\n
Should one be interested in relocating to Joplin, the club bragged that, \u201cJoplin is essentially a mining town, but it has none of the disagreeable characteristics which Western mining camps possess, nor is it cursed with pauper labor. The people are Americans.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Joplin Club provided the following statistics:
\nPopulation of the city of Joplin, 1891: 17, 389
\nCorporate area of the city in square miles: 12.5
\nNumber of miles of macadamized streets in city: 45
\nNumber of miles of sidewalks: 35
\nNumber of miles of electric street railway: 8
\nNumber of water mains: 26
\nNumber of gas mains: 13
\nNumber of miles of electric light wire: 135
\nNumber of telephone subscribers: 153
\nNumber of wholesale houses (businesses): 14
\nNumber of retail houses (businesses): 314
\nNumber of manufactories: 22
\nNumber of flour mills (475 barrels per day): 2
\nNumber of high schools (cost $40,000): 2
\nNumber of ward schools: 11
\nNumber of school children in city: 5,263
\nNumber of churches: 12 \u2014 3 Methodist, 3 Presbyterian, 2 Baptist, 1 Congregational, 1 Episcopal, 1 Christian, 1 German Lutheran, 1 Catholic.
\nNumber of opera houses: 2
\nNumber of daily papers: 3
\nNumber of railways: 6 — 2 divisions of the St. Louis & San Francisco, the Joplin division of the Missouri Pacific, the Joplin division of the Kansas City, Fort Scott, & Memphis, and the Kansas City, Pittsburg, and Gulf.
\nNumber of rail cars unloaded at Joplin in 1891 (15 tons each): 17,159<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition (commonly referred to as the World’s Fair) was held in Chicago, Illinois. As was common at the time, the state of Missouri sent exhibits to demonstrate its agricultural and geological wealth for the masses. An official catalogue, Missouri at the World’s Fair, was distributed to fairgoers. One of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[1665,1666,1668,1667,328,1669,1670,20,31,1663,1664],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}