Welcome to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

A miniature city of palaces and pavilions that

hosted the best—and worst—of our humanity.

Letter from the Author

Dear Reader,

In 2017, I moved from San Francisco to St. Louis. I had so enjoyed writing my historical mystery ENCHANTED HILL by drawing on my experiences living in California, and I knew I wanted to find an engaging story to tell in my new hometown.

I found that story in the Missouri History Museum.

I happened to visit during the final weekend of a 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair exhibit just before it was closed for a multi-year renovation. As I wandered the rooms, the story for IVORY CITY came to me perhaps more quickly than anything I’ve ever written. The murder. The characters. The romance. The banter. It unfolded so easily, set amongst the extensive grounds and canals, the sprawling palaces and pavilions, the new-fashioned ice cream cones and iced teas, and the 19 million people who experienced it all. I loved the atmospheric world that was once hidden within St. Louis’s lush jewel of Forest Park—a stunning city that while temporary, changed the world forever.

I devoured everything I could get my hands on to bring this world back to life on the page. I met with historians. Read books and watched documentaries. Viewed maps and vintage photographs and toured the Chatillon-DeMenil mansion, where a kind tour guide and his corgi Lulu showed me an extensive collection of 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair memorabilia.

It didn’t take long to discover the darker sides of the Fair, as well. I will be forever grateful to Janna Añonuevo Langholz at the Philippine Village Historical Site for a tour she gave me to help me better understand the multifaceted experience of Filipino people during the Fair. The icing on the cake was visiting the revamped World’s Fair exhibit at the Missouri History Museum on its opening weekend in 2024, with its interactive, three-dimensional display, and to imagine what it must have been like to see it alongside millions of visitors in 1904—including some of my own relatives.

This point in history—spanning less than a year—burst with life, shadows, progress, pride, disappointments, complexity, and birthed an endless array of stories, both luminous and heartbreaking. I hope I’ve done it a fraction of justice, and that you can experience within these pages a brief glimpse of what it might have felt like to enter the marvelous and tragic Ivory City.

Happy reading—

Emily Bain Murphy

The 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair

Grace had seen the Ivory City being built from afar, watching the construction from one of the ten bedrooms on the second floor of the Carter mansion.
She’d seen the carved ivory columns, the soaring domes of the Palaces, the strips of manicured grass flanking the pavilions and stone bridges reminiscent of Venetian canals. She’d watched the silhouette of the enormous Ferris Wheel that had claimed the lives of twelve different men in the course of its construction.
But nothing had prepared her for being within the city herself.
Paved walkways bordered the lush emerald grass of the Music Pavilion, sculpted by viburnum bushes that burst with fragrant white blossoms as big as snowballs. Flags representing more than thirty countries unfurled to welcome them in a colorful promenade along the great entrance.
- The Ivory City

The Fairgrounds then….

The World’s Fair had 1,500 temporary buildings built in the middle of St. Louis’s Forest Park, mostly made from a plaster-like material called staff.

They were almost entirely destroyed at the end of the Fair. But two structures still remain in St. Louis today: the Flight Cage (which now houses birds at the St. Louis Zoo) and the Palace of Fine Arts, now known as the Saint Louis Art Museum.

See below for more details—and some other places not to miss on a Fair-related scavenger hunt through St. Louis.

What Forest Park and the art museum look like currently. This was the center of the Fair in Forest Park and the Basin still remains. This lawn is now famous for sledding in the winter, hosting free concerts from the St. Louis Symphony, and the annual Balloon Glow.

To explore the fairgrounds, click on the icons below in the interactive map. Please note, this feature works best by entering full-screen mode.

Interactive Map of the 1904 World's Fair by emilybainmurphy

The Fairgrounds now…..

A museum in Forest Park with an interactive 3D display of the Fairgrounds.
Free to enter.
One of the only buildings still standing from the original Fairgrounds. The collection hosts 37,000 objects that cover 5,000 years of history.
Free to enter.
A gorgeous, 1300-acre park where the Fairgrounds were once held.
Free to enter.

Originally built for the 1904 World’s Fair, the Flight Cage is over 200 feet long and 50 feet high. It’s one of the only remaining structures from the World’s Fair and houses 20 different species of birds. It can still be walked through as part of a visit to the St. Louis zoo.
The zoo and the flight cage are free to enter.
Some of the best ice cream you’ll ever have (try the caramel cookies and cream or the honey lavender in a lavender cone). A local favorite, and included here because ice cream cones were one of the foods popularized at this Fair.
A newly installed Philippine Village Historical Site marker to commemorate the experience of the Filipino community during the Fair, on the site of the Fair’s former Philippine Village.
Free to visit.
My personal favorite place in the city. The Garden was founded in 1859 and was a tourist attraction at the time of the 1904 World’s Fair. Its stone lanterns in the Japanese Garden remain from the Fair.
A memorial built after the Fair ended, on the spot that once housed the Fair’s Missouri Building.
Free to visit.

About The Ivory City

The Devil in the White City meets Pride and Prejudice in this romantic historical murder mystery set at the 1904 World’s Fair.

A miniature city of palaces and pavilions becomes a backdrop for romance, betrayal—and murder.

Cousins Grace and Lillie have been best friends since birth, despite Grace’s vastly inferior social status ever since her mother married for love instead of wealth. When Lillie invites Grace to the biggest event of the century—the legendary World’s Fair, also known as “The Ivory City”—Grace hopes her fortunes might be about to change.

But when a member of their party is brutally killed at the fair, and suspicion falls on Lillie’s brother Oliver, Grace must prove Oliver’s innocence before her beloved cousins’ family is ruined forever. Along the way, she'll discover that the city’s wealthy elite—including Oliver’s handsome but irritable friend Theodore—aren’t quite who they appear to be. And amidst the glitz, glamor, and magic of the Ivory City lurks a danger that just may claim her life.

THE IVORY CITY received a starred review from Library Journal. Available from Hachette/Union Square on November 4, 2025.