Item: i91838

Authentic Medal of:

United States – Trans-Mississippi International Exposition, Omaha, Nebraska 1898
1898 Brass Medal mm (15.58 grams)
Reference: HK# 283
TRANS-MISSISSIPPI INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION OMAHA 1898, Part of “the most beautiful women in the Trans-Mississippi country”.
1848, Mounted Indian spearing a buffalo.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

The Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition was a world’s fair held in Omaha, Nebraska from June 1 to November 1 of 1898. Its goal was to showcase the development of the entire West, stretching from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast. The Indian Congress was held concurrently. Over 2.6 million people came to Omaha to view the 4,062 exhibits during the five months of the Exposition. President William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan were among the dignitaries who attended at the invitation of Gurdon Wattles, the event’s leader. 100,000 people assembled on the plaza to hear them speak. The Expo stretched over a 180-acre (0.73 km²) tract in North Omaha and featured a 2,000 feet (610 m)-long lagoon encircled by 21 classical buildings that featured fine and modern products from around the world.

One reporter wrote, “Perhaps the candid Nebraskan would tell you in a moment of frank contriteness that the prime object of this exposition was to boom Omaha.”

The decision to hold Exposition was made in late 1895 by a small committee of Omaha businessmen determined to hold the Expo, led by banker Gurdon Wattles. In making their decision, the committee set aside several sites for consideration, including an area near 16th Avenue and Pershing Drive in East Omaha, near the now-dry Florence Lake. It was the preferred site for the Exposition early in 1897. 400 acres (1.6 km²) surrounding the tract that became Miller Park was considered the strongest contender towards the middle of the year. However, both sites ended up losing out to a site in North Omaha later in the year when Omaha banker Herman Kountze donated land in his Kountze Place development to the City of Omaha. After the Expo some of that land would become Kountze Park.

Many important developments happened throughout the city before the opening of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. They included the opening of the Burlington Train Station in downtown Omaha.

During the Expo, on August 31, 1898, the committee declared “Cody Day” in honor of Buffalo Bill Cody. Cody brought his “world-famous” Wild West Show back to the Omaha Driving Park where it was formally founded several years earlier.

October 12 was “President’s Day” at the Expo and featured a speech by President William McKinley focused on international affairs and the necessity of not being isolationist.

The total attendance was 2,613,508, and the total receipts were $1,924,077. The following year after the Expo some members of its managing committee decided to host another Expo-type event, which became the Great American Exposition in summer 1899.

Many temporary buildings, structures, and features were installed for the Exposition. Thomas Rogers Kimball and C. Howard Walker were named co-architects-in-chief for the event. The two men were responsible for the overall site development, including perimeter buildings. They designed several major buildings, some smaller structures and the Arch of States, which was a main entrance.

All these structures were temporary by design, built at about half the cost of permanent buildings. The lower cost allowed the construction of larger structures. The construction of the hundreds of temporary buildings at the Expo was notable because of the almost exclusive usage of a new, cheap and pliable building material called staff. It allowed Expo designers to construct visual reproductions of Grecian and Roman temples, fine European buildings, and more. The buildings were constructed of strips of wood covered with staff.

The Grand Court of the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition was located on the current site of Kountze Park.
 

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km²), the United States is the world’s third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe’s 3.9 million square miles (10.1 million km²). With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York. Forty-eight states and the capital’s federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries.

Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, and the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776. The war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, and gradually admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848.

During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery. By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, and its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the country’s status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 Moon landing. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world’s sole superpower.

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