The Kansas Building was a two-story colonial design with semicircular verandas at the ends. Its portico of composite columns copied those in the Court of the Four Seasons, where ears of corn hang from Ionic volutes. Inside were a reception room, a reading room with Kansas newspapers, a parlor with piano and phonograph, and living rooms upstairs. On Kansas Day, July 19, Governor Capper planted a walnut tree, and William Jennings Bryan dropped in 'just to be neighborly.'
Kansas paid for its building in two installments; the last $20,000 arrived after the fair had opened. The site was dedicated on October 29, 1913, and Albert T. Reid was president of the Kansas commission.
At a glance
- Kansas appropriated $60,000 in two installments (Todd); the Official Guide gives the building's cost as $25,000.
- Dedicated March 11, 1915.
- Site dedicated October 29, 1913.
Afterward
Not recorded; presumably auctioned and wrecked.
Where it stood
Kansas Building stood at about 37.80444 N, 122.45800 W on today's map. The whole fairground over the city →
Sources
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. III (1921), ch. LVIII, p. 315
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. III (1921), ch. LXXXIII, pp. 401-402
- Official Guide of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915), p. 56