The Ticket Booth
The Hills house property contains another historic structure: a ticket booth from the Columbian Exposition — the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. Mary Hills, in her reminiscence An Old Story, Retold recalls the purchase:
... the year of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Of course the family all attended ...The beautiful fair was over and all that remains is the little ticket house that my father bought for the children of the neighborhood. It still stands as it was, one of a dozen of the ticket offices on the wharf at the fair.
The Columbian Exposition closed on October 31, 1893 and the World's Columbian Exposition Salvage Company disposed of the remnants of the fair for the next 3 years (until October, 1896). (Many of the fairs building were destroyed by a fire during this time). So Moore likely purchased the ticket booth sometime between October, 1893 and 1896, ie, around the time of the construction of the Moore house. At this time, Moore did not own the Gray property (which later became the Hills house), so the ticket booth must have been installed somewhere on the Moore property. Moore's daughter Mary would have been about 10 at this time and no doubt would have enjoyed playing in the structure.
The Hills children recall the ticket booth being behind (west of) the Hills house, near the alley, in 1925. Nathan Moore always preferred that his grandsons did not play on his property, so he probably had the ticket moved to the location behind the Hills house when the boys showed an interest in playing in it.
After Nathan Moore's death in 1946, the Hills sold the Moore house, but they retained an additional 40 feet of the Moore property to expand their lot to the North. Sometime after this, the ticket booth was moved to its present location, north of the Hills house.
Another Columbian Exposition Survivor?
Interestingly, there is perhaps another surviving Columbian Exposition building in Oak Park. The building below left is southeast of Unity Temple, and bears a striking resemblance to the Columbian Exposition concession stands (see historic photo below right, stand is at bottom right). Currently there is no documentation to establish this definitively.
Research © Jack Lesniak, 2010. Do not reproduce without permission.