Chicago World's Fair 1893
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
48 free Chicago World's Fair 1893 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The World's Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago's Jackson Park on May 1, 1893, four centuries after Columbus and two decades after the Great Chicago Fire. Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted built a temporary neoclassical "White City" that drew 27 million visitors, introduced the Ferris wheel and the word "midway", and let Westinghouse's alternating current beat Edison in the war of the currents. These 48 questions cover how Chicago beat New York for the fair, the architects behind the great buildings, the Ferris wheel's size and fate, Buffalo Bill's show next door, Little Egypt, Scott Joplin, Swami Vivekananda, Helen Keller and Katharine Lee Bates, the products that debuted, the buildings that survived and the mayor's assassination two days before closing. Easy questions cover the nickname and the headline attractions; the expert tier asks about ballots, bids and building designers. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Chicago's 1893 World's Fair marked the 400th anniversary of which event?
Columbus's landing in the Americas
Columbus's landing in the Americas came in October 1492, so the fair missed its own anniversary: it was dedicated in October 1892 but did not open to visitors until May 1893.
Q 02Which national relic left Philadelphia by train to go on show at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair?
The Liberty Bell
The Liberty Bell went by rail, pausing at extra stops so crowds in towns along the way could see it; after the Civil War such trips helped turn a Philadelphia relic into a symbol the whole country shared.
Q 03What nickname did the fairgrounds earn from their gleaming façades?
White City
White City was a stage set: its marble-looking palaces were plaster on temporary frames, and fire destroyed most of them within a year of the fair closing.
Q 04The fair's Ferris wheel was designed to rival which structure from the 1889 Paris fair?
Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower. Chicago wanted an answer to the star of the 1889 fair, and George Ferris's wheel, though it opened seven weeks late, still sold about 1.4 million rides at 50 cents each.
Q 05Where in Chicago was the fair held?
Jackson Park
Jackson Park was a marshy stretch of lakefront seven miles south of downtown; dredged into lagoons for the fair, it was handed back afterwards as a far better public park.
Q 06Chicago Day at the 1893 fair marked the anniversary of which event?
The Great Chicago Fire
The Great Chicago Fire began on October 8, 1871. Marking its 22nd anniversary with a party let the city show its visitors how completely it had risen from the ashes.
Q 07Who was the fair's director of works, in charge of its architecture?
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Burnham had to run the job alone after his partner John Root died suddenly in 1891; the fair's success led the city's businessmen to commission his 1909 Plan of Chicago.
Q 08Which electrical system won the contract to light the fair?
Westinghouse's alternating current
Westinghouse's alternating current won by undercutting Edison's General Electric, and a fair glowing safely every night was its best advert: the same year Westinghouse won the contract to harness Niagara Falls.
Q 09Financiers from which rival offered $15m if Congress gave them the fair?
New York City
New York City's backers included J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt and William Waldorf Astor, yet Chicago still won: its bankers raised several million extra dollars to beat their final offer.
Q 10Denied a spot, where did Buffalo Bill stage his Wild West show?
Just outside the fairgrounds
Just outside the fairgrounds turned out to be the better pitch: turned away by the fair's managers, Cody owed them no share of his takings and drew off crowds they badly needed.
Q 11Who wrote the 2003 bestseller pairing the fair's architect with killer H. H. Holmes?
Erik Larson
Erik Larson's book set off a Hollywood tug-of-war: Tom Cruise optioned it in 2003, then Leonardo DiCaprio won the film rights in 2010, hoping to play the killer himself.
Q 12The fair's Palace of Fine Arts reopened in 1933 as which institution?
Museum of Science and Industry
Museum of Science and Industry. Sears chief Julius Rosenwald, inspired by Munich's Deutsches Museum, paid to rescue the neglected plaster palace, and its crumbling shell was recast in limestone.
Q 13Which chewing gum is said to have made its debut at the 1893 fair?
Juicy Fruit
Q 21Which Marvel series set an episode titled "1893" at the fair?
Loki
Loki and Mobius go there hunting Ravonna Renslayer and meet Victor Timely.
Q 22A belly dancer on the Midway of the 1893 fair is remembered under which stage name?
Little Egypt
Little Egypt is the name legend gave the Midway's 'hootchy-kootchy' star, though historians still debate who she was; the tune that went with the dance lives on as the stock snake-charmer melody.
Q 23Which historian lectured at the fair on the closing of the American frontier?
Frederick Jackson Turner
Frederick Jackson Turner argued that settling the frontier, not a European inheritance, had made America distinct; that same summer Buffalo Bill was drawing Chicago crowds to a show re-enacting the West Turner said was gone.
Juicy Fruit came from William Wrigley Jr., who had arrived in Chicago selling soap and gave gum away as a free extra, until customers wanted the gum more than the goods.
Q 14Which landscape architect laid out the fairgrounds?
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park, treated the lakeside bog as a seascape, threading it with lagoons and canals that visitors toured in quiet electric boats.
Q 15About how many admissions did the 1893 Chicago fair record, when the US had 63 million people?
About 27 million
About 27 million admissions were counted in six months, some visitors more than once; the takings let the fair pay off its debt and close with cash in hand.
Q 16George Ferris, who built the fair's giant wheel, ran a bridge-engineering firm in which city?
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh. His firm there tested metals for bridges and railroads, the know-how behind a 264-foot wheel that could lift 2,160 riders at once.
Q 17The Ferris wheel was finally moved to which later world's fair?
St. Louis 1904
St. Louis 1904 was the wheel's last stop: it fell into disrepair once that fair closed, and in May 1906 it was brought down with dynamite and sold for scrap.
Q 18Which designer made his reputation with a chapel built for the fair?
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany later reclaimed the chapel from a cathedral crypt, had his workmen repair it and rebuilt it at his Long Island estate; it now stands in a Florida museum.
Q 19Which caramel maker bought the German chocolate-making machines he saw running at the 1893 Chicago fair?
Milton S. Hershey
Milton S. Hershey was so taken with chocolate that in 1900 he sold his thriving caramel business for $1 million to stake everything on it.
Q 20The fair is commemorated by one of the stars on what?
Chicago's municipal flag
Chicago's municipal flag has carried the fair's star since 1917; its designer set his stars to one side so that more could be added, and two were, though every campaign for a fifth has failed.
Q 24Which Hindu monk gave the "Sisters and Brothers of America" speech at the fair?
Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda had sailed from India on money raised by his disciples; the speeches made him famous, and he stayed in the West for more than three years teaching Vedanta.
Q 25Whose visit to the fair inspired the "alabaster cities" line in America the Beautiful?
Katharine Lee Bates
Katharine Lee Bates stopped at the fair on a train journey west to teach a summer course in Colorado; later on that trip, on top of Pikes Peak, the poem's opening lines came to her.
Q 26Which future author toured the 1893 fair as a girl, with Alexander Graham Bell as her guide?
Helen Keller
Helen Keller, deaf and blind since infancy, was given special leave by the fair's president to touch the exhibits, while Bell described the sights to her.
Q 27Which patriotic text did millions of US schoolchildren first recite in October 1892, in a celebration tied to the fair?
The Pledge of Allegiance
The Pledge of Allegiance was written for a children's magazine that was also selling American flags to schools, and it timed the mass recital to the fair's dedication festivities.
Q 28Which ragtime composer, raised in Texarkana, performed in Chicago during the 1893 fair?
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin came to the fair an unknown and left one: 'Maple Leaf Rag', the hit that made his name and ragtime's, was still six years away.
Q 29Whose football team, the Maroons, were the original "Monsters of the Midway"?
University of Chicago
University of Chicago. Its campus runs along the Midway Plaisance, the fair's old amusement strip; after the university abolished football in 1939, the nickname passed to the NFL's Bears.
Q 30Which young music promoter developed the fair's Midway amusement area?
Sol Bloom
Sol Bloom was only 23 when he ran the Midway; the showman later sat in Congress for 26 years and chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee through World War II.