Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1897-04-29
TENNESSEE CENTENNIAL
The Great Exposition Will Open
Its Gates May I.
A Scene OF SpIendOr Whose Com
pIeteness Has Never Been Rivnie0
-GeneraI Reduction In Rail-
rOad Rates.
Especial Nashville Glenn, Letter


sille, considered as spectacular effect.
has one marked superiority TO the late
Columbian exposition at Chicago. In |
the white city there was sense of
depth. 1t was all foreground. In
whatever direction one looked there |
was nothing whatever but lath and
plaster. gilt and tinsel. Nowhere
could one look out beyond the tenn
porary splendor of the passing hour
and rest ones imagination with q
glimpse of the permanent and the his
toric. Now at Nashville things are diff
ferent. Standing on the "Rialto'' here
and facing eastward one beholds a great
white statue of Athenae, beyond her
the replica of the Parthenon, and be-
yond that and round about white
| arches, glittering domes. reaches of pale
green waters, deep green stretches of
lawn that have golden tones in the
sunshine, brightness, lightness, long
perspectives of white wall, shadowy
darkness in arch after arch, world of
| CLEAN and glitter, fascinating. insub-
stantiality that has sprung suddenly
out of the earth. and shall return
whence it was digged. But this is not
all. While standing on the Riaito
wheel about and face eastward. The
direction of the bridge is continued n
broad avenue that falls away straight
III front of you among shelving lawns
and scattered trees. 1t curves to the
left and disappears. The eye, however.
still ranges on. Bright sunshine and
blue sky overhang a wide valley. and
beyond the valley there are many
houses. Among them iow-lying clouds
Of smoke blend hazily with the blue of
distance and billow upward along u
ridge crowded with buildings. Here
and there tower shoots high above the
haze. A spire top catches the sunlight
and glitters like q jewel. Straight n
front of you, at the very center of the
view, browning and dominating the
whole vista, yelled little by gray
smoke, softened by the blue of the hori-
zon and backgrounded by blue of
heaven. there is uplifted against the
clouds the historic state house of Ten
nessee.
The scenic value of this imaginative
undertone, so TO speak, which is pos
sessed by the Nashville exposition. cam
not be overestimated. So speaks Ma
thaniel Stephenson, of the Cincinnati
Commercial Tribune, who visited the
exposition grounds last week. In the
painting he said:
And here in the midst of the battle
fields, where Tennessee made such a
valiant attempt to break from the
strong bond of the national union. she Is
now celebrating her original entry into
that estate. A new day is daw1ling, not
only literally as the visions of the night
fade away, while the shadows begin to
lift, but fguratively, in the choice of
the event to which this southern state
asks all the world to do honor. If the
darkness in the shadow of the Parthe-
: non has its ghosts of war and ruin, the
brightness that is succeeding it brings
forth the white statue of Athens, and
: thus
" The old order changes. giving place to
| new,
And God fulfills Himself In many ways
But now the darkness of the night
has changed imperceptibly to an alto
gether different one, the darkness of the
dawn. You have not yet become aware
of any increase of light. What you have
.ealized is a vague, uncanny feeling. as
if things fixed and immovable were
slowly drawing near you. Large, dark
shapes of buildings are stealing grad
ually into the range of vision. Great
bu1ks of blackness take on form anC
distinctness and resolve themselves :nto
towers, domes, porticces. Bit by BIT
the very air itself is playing the same
strange trick. The starshine is falling
steadily nearer to the earth A blue
never seen at any other hour of the ..
glimmers downward from the descend
ing stars and makes the whole atmos
phere one endless starry simmer Thi:
| iS nPifhar nirhf L,,&
. most mysterious of all the hours. tn,
hour before the dawn. when the ordl
9 nary conditions of life do not exist
! You feel that you are no longer upor
:. earth. but wandering about the street.
of some dream city, tenanted by vol
known not what and located in some fa1
!, place unexplored by man.
. THE buildings loom vaster and vastel
as the blue simmer grows steadjI,
! deeper. The dome of the Agriculture
4 building is crowned by the stars them
+, selves. The tower of the auditoriuu
= springs away into the very heart o
!. heaven. The pillars of the Parthenor
n have the height of mountains TIL.
= statue of Athens is some immeasurabI,
vast creature which is not TO be ap
n preached.
a And all these monsters of the dawI
i have the strange effect Of being asleep
O They are buildings no longer. they ar
: living creatures wrapped in dead slun
q Der, gazing eastward with signifies
e | eyes, that will be awakened by the dawn
Il Perhaps 1t is the continuous though i'm
= perceptible changing of the degree o
+ dlstinctness in their details, due to tn
o steadily growing light in the heaven
i that produces this uncanny effect O
!. being alive. But however produced, L
" is there. So real is it that one catche