The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1875-11-18
The Centennial Building.

A correspondent of the Buffalo CONNER
cial Adcer:,ser, who went on the Centen.
NAL excursic n, gives the following descrip.
ton Of the buildings erected for the Expo.
sition: a.
At first sight 1t Is difficult to realize the
amazing extent of the premises. The
Main Building" as it Is called, Is in
the form of parallelogram, 1876 feet
long by AGA feet wide, and it incloses
space equivalent to more than twenty
acres. The long lines are broken at the
center by projections 416 feet in length at
the end of the building. Now to say
that building is 1876 feet long and 464
feet wide is to convey to the majority of
readers but faint idea of its size. But it
may help readers to form an adequate con-
ception of its immensely if they take into
mind any well-shaped twenty acre lot or
field that they happen to remember, and
fancy it all inclosed under one roof, and
then they will begin to understand the
size of the wonderful building about
which they are now reading. And a won
derful building it truly is, in magnitude,
airy-like appearance and rapidity of con-
struction, like a creation of the Genie of
the Wonderful Lamp. A printed descrip-
ton furnished to each guest states that the
towers which rise at each corner of the
building are IS feet in height. In order
to obtain central feature, the roof for
1874 square feet at the center has been
raised above the surrounding portion, and
four towers 4S feet square, rising to 1870
feet high, are introduced into the corners
of this elevated roof This gives vcntila-
ton as we'll as ornament. The main build
ing has 936 ,O08 square feet of surface, or
nearly 21H acres. The ground plan shows
a central avenue 100 feet in width and ,S32
feet in length, the longest avenue of that
width ever introduced into an ex-
hibition building. On either side of this
is another avenue of equal length and 100
feet wide. Between the central and side
avenues are aisles forty-eight feet wide,
and on the outer sides Of the building
smaller aisles twenty -four feet wide. To
break the great length Of the r0oflines
three transepts have been introduced of
positions to each other as the longitudinal
avenues. These cross the building, and
are 416 feet in length. The intersections
OF these various avenues make at the CEN
ter of the building nine spaces, free from
supports, which are from 100 to 100 feet
square, and aggregate 416 feet square,
The general elevation of the roofs of all
these avenues varies from forty-five to
seventy feet.
Now, when the visitors had been taken
through the length of the main building
they were next escorted right straight
along in the same line 500 feet west to the
machinery building, which is structure
of much the same character and appear
ance, and may in fact he regarded as but
an extension OF the main building. 1t is, or
is to be, very nearly as large as the other.
For although originally designed to have
length of only l ,402 feet, and width
of about 800 feet, with an insignificant
extension of POS by 210 feet, the whole to
cover paltry area of about thirteen acres,
such has been the unexpected demand for
exhibition space that the Centennial Off
GERS are seriously considering the feast
bility and propriety of so adding to the
dimensions of the machinery building
AS to make it almost equal in extent to the
main building. As they now stand, how
ever, these two structures together present
frontage of 1898 feet from end to end
upon the principal avenue of the Exhibit
ton grounds. If the reader will think of
this length as making distance Of three
fifths of a mile, he will not he very far out
of the way.