Having been ill and absent from home, I have only today received your letter of the 15th instant.

The duty you have accepted at the suggestion of Mr. Gilder is one of great importance and I am exceedingly glad that it has come to you. No one else could have met it nearly as well. I had been thinking that some setting forth of the leading motives in common of the architects was most desirable, and what you say in this respect expresses my mind exactly.

As to our part in the business, we had first to look for places which could be made conveniently and economically accessible for visitors and for goods, places in each of which a sufficiently large body of land could be found not divided by railroads, streets, creeks or burial grounds, and not so occupied by buildings or other improvements that it would be too difficult to get possession of it, clear it of encumbrances, and suitably prepare it. Of the few places found available in these respects, all were flat and low and unsatisfactory horticulturally. The only agreeable or dignified element of scenery within many miles of the town was the Lake. There was but one place on the Lake presenting the required conditions of accessibility and a clear field. This was a body of land, 500 acres in extent, which for twenty years had been held free from buildings with the intention that it should ultimately be used as the site for a public park.

It was between six and seven miles distant from the central parts of the town, where are the principle hotels, railway stations, etc. But, compared with any available site materially nearer, the fact that it could be approached [347]without crossing the river, and with little crossing of railroads, and that it would be accessible by boats on the Lake, was thought to offset the disadvantages of distance.

On the Lake, the park reservation had a length of a mile and a half. Its depth back from the Lake was about three quarters of a mile. Its area is double that of the last Paris Exposition.

Topographically, the place consisted of a series of sand dunes which have been successively thrown up by the Lake, the surface of the highest of them being not generally more than six feet above the Lake at high stages. Between the dunes, there were low, broad, flat, swampy swales, subject to be flooded and with water generally standing one or two feet below the surface.

Stunted oaks grew on the dunes, except on that last formed and nearest the Lake; the intermediate flats were overgrown with sedge.

The manifest disadvantages of the place in the particulars stated were considered to be compensated by the grandeur of the adjoining Lake, and by the conveniences available for transportation, the chief of them being that a number of railroads passed within a few hundred feet of one of the boundaries of the tract, extending one way nearly to the heart of the town; on the other, connecting, or easily to be connected, with lines to all parts of the continent.

The use of the ground was obtained, with the understanding that, after the Exposition, it should be left in a condition as well adapted to be formed into a permanent public pleasure ground as when taken.

The leading motives in laying out the ground and determining the building sites may be indicated as follows:-

As the primary feature of the plan, the dunes or higher parts of the ground were to be prepared as sites for the Exposition buildings, and for suitable plateaus and terraces about them. The material needed to give these building plateaus suitable elevation was to be obtained by excavation from the intermediate swales and swampy places. The depressed areas to be formed by such excavation were to be filled with water and made suitable to be used by certain forms of small water craft.

With this general purpose broadly in view; with a view also to the obligation to leave the place in a condition well adapted to its permanent use as a public pleasure ground, the outlines of the interior waters and the arrangement of the building sites was further determined by the motive of the buildings, the {Lake,} and the waters into agreeable and effective compositions, some of a palatial and stately character; some picturesque and {…}.

A part of the interior waters will be canals between architectural walls, and a part will have the aspect of natural lagoons between the dunes.

As to the basin, the outer harbor, the great central court and the architectural features, the motives of the design are known to you. We have made several restudies of the basin, terraces, bridges, etc. and are in frequent conference as to special features and architectural details of these, with St. Gaudens, [348]McMonnies, Atwood and the Architects, but the leading principles of the design as first conceived and familiar to you are in no respect varied from.

The general horticultural design is determined in its leading character by regard to the following circumstances.

Thick ice forms on Lake Michigan during the winter and accumulates near Chicago. Its presence, with the great body of ice-cold water lying five hundred miles to the northward, makes a spring climate very trying to vegetation. Harsh and violently gusty winds also come at intervals over the Lake.

For these and other reasons, the locality of the Exposition is almost of a desert character, and the conditions are wholly unfavorable to such effects of fine, rich foliage as have been generally aimed at in the decoration of grounds of World’s Fairs hitherto.

The best opportunity of securing beauty of vegetation in any large combination with the great structures of the Exposition, is to be looked for on the banks of the lagoons, but here a difficulty of design is found in the fact that the water of the Lake is liable to fluctuations, not only from day to day, but as to its normal and average elevation during the Summer. The margin of uncertainty in this latter respect is fully three feet.

To obtain reasonable security against a display of bare and dreary shores, the design is to edge the waters with a nearly constant strip of such plants natural to the circumstances, chiefly of a reedy character, as may be hoped to flourish, if left on dry ground for considerable periods, but which also will live and appear to advantage, if more or less submerged. This edging will be backed by masses of low foliage, chiefly of shrub willows, and other bushes natural to watersides, and that will also bear occasional partial submergence. Elsewhere, the grounds, beyond the building terraces, will be level and characterized by broad bodies of neat turf, little disturbed by decorative features.

As no satisfactory use of shade trees is practicable, and as the rays of the sun are, at times during the Summer, intense at Chicago, much use is expected to be made of awnings, and there will be numerous shaded seats and pavilions for rest and refreshment.

I think that you understand how the problem of the railroad entrance and that of the intra-mural road are standing. Both are under active discussion, the habit of the engineers formed in dealing with very different and wholly commercial requirements standing in the way of what we want.

What I have written will, I trust, be a sufficient memorandum for your purpose. But let us know if there is anything more that we can do to help you, and command us.

Faithfully Yours,