To many it was The Greatest of Expositions. It was called the Universal Exposition of 1904. It was the 1240-acre Ivory City whose gates admitted 100,000 people per day. Officially it was the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and most know it, now as then, as the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. The Fair resulted in iconic real memories and legends. A well-known song is a part of every St. Louisan's id. Entertainers and dignitaries of the day, such as President Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Scott Joplin, Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan, Geronimo, William Jennings Bryant, Annie Oakley, Guglielmo Marconi and Will Rogers, attended. Foods and trademarks had their origins at the fair, they say. Ice cream cones had their beginnings at the fair. And Dr. Pepper, iced tea, hot dogs and hamburgers, cotton candy, Buster Brown Shoes and Statler's world's largest hotel gained fame. The fair's buildings were built to disappear with the end of the fair. The grounds were cleared and Forest Park blossomed and grand homes surrounded it. Only two structures remain other than Washington University buildings. The current Art Museum in the park was built to be permanent.

And the avian "flight house" is still fascinating strolling visitors. There were buildings, palaces, pavilions and the entertaining Pike for everyone's interest and taste. For 184 days they introduced and educated visitors from around the world to the industries and arts of America and the world. Additionally, the city of St. Louis hosted the first Olympics to be held in the Western Hemisphere, during the span of the fair.

This collection of postcards is but a small portion of the cards and promotional paper that was created for the fair. There were souvenir maps, and brochures, plates and figurines and ashtrays from every exhibit and every country. There were paper fans and advertising of all sorts. Postcards, whose origin in America was probably the Chicago fair in 1893, were sold throughout the St. Louis fair and city and many from recently introduced vending machines. Cupples Publishing of St. Louis created many "Official" fair cards. There were simple black and white images, glittered cards, silver cards, cards printed by the newspapers that you had to cut out and "hold to the light" cards. The latter, when you did hold them to the light, would magically define windows and details of the many fair buildings. The fair and era fed the increasingly popular hobby of collecting postcards known as Deltiology.