What came to be known as the World's Columbian Exposition was planned to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's 1492 landfall in the New World. Chicago was selected as the site for the fair, and the famous White City was build in a marshy area covered with dense, wild vegetation. The exposition, covering 633 acres, opened on May 1, 1893. Unfortunately, by 1896 most of the fair's buildings had been removed or destroyed. Di Cola and Stone use archival photographs to share the history of the grounds as they looked in 1893. -- adapted from back cover