The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

The architect of many of America’s most iconic structures, including the Flatiron Building and Union Station in Washington DC, Burnham was also the Director of Works for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Paul Starrett describes the blue-eyed Burnham as “one of the handsomest men I ever saw” (26). In 1912, he and his wife Margaret (formerly Margaret Sullivan) sailed to Europe on The Olympic, the sister ship of The Titanic. Both Harvard and Yale rejected Burnham, but he later received honorary degrees from both institutions for his services to American architecture. The literary maven Harriet Monroe described Burnham: “To himself, and indeed to most of the world in general, he was always right, and by knowing this so securely he built up the sheer power of personality which accomplished big things” (80).

Burnham’s close friend and architectural partner was four years his junior, and considered prior to his death to be the aesthetic force behind their firm’s success. Root was accepted at Oxford but studied at New York University where he was instrumental in the creation of the skyscraper and in attracting leading eastern architects to the fair project. Root married Mary Walker, but she died just weeks after their wedding from tuberculosis. Two years later, Root married bridesmaid Dora Monroe; though her sister, the prominent editor and poet Harriet Monroe was also in love with Root all her life. Root died in January 1891, leaving Burnham to continue with the World fair project alone.

The landscape architect responsible for New York’s Central Park, Olmsted was 68 when he took on the fair project. He already knew the challenges posed by Jackson Park from earlier planning projects. Olmsted pushed for “minor incidents…of a less evidently prepared character; less formal, more apparently spontaneous and incidental” (194). After developing dementia, Olmsted died in 1903.

Holmes’ assistant, Pitezel, was a carpenter who joined Holmes’ workforce in November 1889. He was arrested in Indiana for trying to forge checks on behalf of Holmes. Pitezel was “too useful” for Holmes to kill for many years, and Holmes even paid for him to attend rehabilitation for drinking at the Keeley Institute, at which time Pitezel met Emeline Cigrand. Holmes was arrested for insurance fraud after murdering Pitezel, leading to the discovery of this and his string of other murders. In a confession, Holmes used a wart of Pitezel’s neck to distinguish him. Holmes went on to kidnap and murder three of Pitezel’s children: Alice, Nellie and Howard. Holmes wrote to Pitezel’s wife Carrie from prison, claiming innocence. 

Charles Chappell was a machinist who worked for Holmes as a common laborer and later as an articulator. Holmes paid him to transform the corpses of his victims into skeletons that could be sold. He had acquired the skill while articulating cadavers for medical students at Cook County Hospital.

The caretaker at Holmes’ murder castle, Quinlan tried to assist Holmes with the murder of Jonathan Belknap. He was in his late 30s and lived in the building. 

Clara Lovering was the first unfortunate bride of the serial killer Holmes. They met in Alton, New Hampshire and married in 1878. She bore him a daughter, Lucy. Two weeks after his marriage to Myrta Belknap, he filed for divorce, charging Clara of infidelity but ultimately failing to prosecute.

At first, Myrta helped Holmes, but when she became jealous of her husband’s flirtations with other women, the distance between them widened until she left to live with her parents while she was pregnant. Holmes was attentive once again, charming the Belknaps and giving Myrta money.

Jonathan is Myrta Belknap’s great uncle. Holmes persuades Belknap to lend him money and invites Belknap on a tour of his “castle,” during which Holmes tries but fails to murder Belknap in his sleep. Belknap later commented: “If I’d gone [to see the roof as Holmes asked,] the forgery [Holmes falsified Belknap’s signature to pay himself additional money] probably wouldn’t have been discovered, because I wouldn’t have been around to discover it” (89).

The third wife of H. H. Holmes was a wealthy orphan who married Holmes in a sham marriage she believed to be legitimate. Holmes murdered Minnie and her sister Anna at the World’s Fair Hotel. Holmes later moved to her estate in Fort Worth, Texas, which she had unwittingly signed over to him. 

Thirty-year-old Ned opened a jewelry store in Holmes’ complex, but it is not long before Holmes’ attentions toward Ned’s wife Julia spark fighting between the couple and Ned leaves Julia and their daughter, Pearl. Julia, pregnant by Holmes, is murdered on Christmas Eve along with her daughter Pearl. 

Ned’s wife, Julia, begins an affair with Holmes, who promises to marry her but instead kills both her and the baby she is carrying, along with Julia’s daughter, Pearl. Parts of their bodies would later be discovered in Holmes’ basement.

Emeline Cigrand was the 24-year-old blonde stenographer working in Dr. Keeley’s office when Joseph Pitezel was sent for treatment by Holmes. Holmes offered her a job as his personal secretary at twice the salary she was receiving at Keeley’s. They promptly began a relationship, leading neighbors to speculate when she suddenly went missing. “Dr. Holmes” said that she had left to get married. Her father persistently contacted Holmes as he searched in vain for his daughter, who most likely was killed in the furnace Holmes had installed on borrowed credit, leaving only a charred footprint behind on its interior.

At 21, the entrepreneur was hired to oversee concessions at the Midway Plaisance. He was paid $1,000 a week. He successfully promoted the fair, popularizing the idea that the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building was “big enough to hold the entire standing army of Russia” (160). Having lost all the money he earned on the fair in a failed business enterprise, Sol Bloom became a congressman and one of the founders of the United Nations.

Ferris eventually succeeded in his pitch for the fair’s architectural centerpiece, a giant revolving wheel that would “out-Eiffel Eiffel” (15). The wheel incorporated the largest new piece casting ever made by Bethlehem Steel. Though it was completed late and concerns about wind persisted, the Ferris wheel was a success, becoming the biggest attraction at the fair. In the autumn of 1896, Ferris and his wife separated, and he died weeks later of typhoid at age 37. 

Burnham’s chief structural engineer was brought onto the fair project but resigned after failing to calculate the wind loads on the fair’s main buildings.

Burnham gave one of New York’s most prominent painters the task of attracting visitors to the fair. Millet was extremely successful in organizing special events, which drew world-record-breaking numbers of visitors. Millet became Burnham’s close friend and died in the Titanic disaster.

The five-time mayor of Chicago and editor of the Chicago Times was shot by Prendergast in Harrison’s home in October 1893. Harrison’s tolerance of gambling, prostitution, and alcohol made him popular with the lower class but not the upper class. Joseph Medill was critical of Harrison’s lax approach but also called him “the most remarkable man that our city has ever produced” (214).