St. Louis World's Fair celebrates the new era and brings to the public hamburgers, iced tea and ice-cream cones. A financial success, it advertises Missouri to the world. Standard Oil opens a refinery in tiny Sugar Creek. The prospect of cheap oil spurs industrial development in the Blue River valley. Several modern skyscrapers are built, including the R.A. Long Building at 10th Street and Grand, the Scarritt Building at Eighth and Grand, Commerce Bank at 10th and Walnut.
City annexes more land.
It now covers 60 square miles, as far as 79th Street on the south and almost to today's boundary with Independence on the east. Innovative glass-walled Boley Building is constructed at 12th and Walnut. President William McKinley dies of wounds suffered from an anarchist assassin's bullet. Theodore Roosevelt becomes president. First transatlantic radio transmission.