The Devil in The White City (Pgs. 286 to 388)

Summary:

As The Devil in the White City came to a closing, Holmes took Minnie and Anna to the fireworks display and they were delighted. Holmes also proposed a new plan for Anna to study art, and then they would soon leave, travel east and ultimately end up in Europe. There was a lot of worrying and anticipation that the 200,000 people expected to be at the Exposition would drop drastically. One day Anna and Holmes went to the hotel and he showed her around to some stores and restaurants on the first floor. He also took her to the top floor to show her the view. He later took her to his office and carried on with his plan; he told her to go into the vault for a document that he had forgotten and really needed. He slowly followed behind her and closed the door. Anna was flabbergasted. In the vault it was utterly dark and the air had started to become thicker and warmer. Holmes had the ability to do many things to Anna while she was in there. For instance, he could have opened the door and looked in on her with a smile to show her that it was no accident, or he could have just flooded the vault with gas right then and there. It’s a bit ambiguous but I think he just left her in there to suffocate as he listed to her through some gas pipes. He later went to see Minnie, held her, kissed her, and told her that Anna was waiting for them at the castle.

Quote:

“The true climax occurred after the grounds closed, however. In the silence, with the air still scented with exploded powder, collectors accompanied by armed guards went to each ticket booth and collected the accumulated silver, three tons of it” (Larson 319).

Reaction:

Prior to this quote, it was ten in the morning on Monday, October 9, 1893; it was Chicago day! Ticket takers at the fair's Sixty-fourth Street gate had counted about 60,000 admission only from that gate thus far. That gate had usually accounted for about one-fifth of attendances on any ordinary of the fair. They then estimated that the total number of admissions would be well near 300,000, which was pretty close to Paris' exposition of 397,000 admissions. Ticket-takers were starting to anticipate that something unusual was happening. The rate at which tickets were selling was multiplying. Silver coins had to start being stacked everywhere. It's funny because while Gale Ferris was riding his wheel (how ironic), he was able to look down upon the crowd, and claimed, "there must be a million people down there"(Larson 319). He had nearly gotten it right. The Paris record had been shattered by Chicago's astounding 751,026 attendances; more people than had attended any single day of any peaceable event in history.