Southern Exposition

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Portion of poster for 1884 Southern Exposition

The Southern Exposition was a five-year series of World's Fairs held in the city of Louisville, Kentucky from 1883 to 1887 in what is now Louisville's Old Louisville neighborhood. The exposition, held for 100 days each year on 45 acres immediately south of Central Park, which is now the St. James-Belgravia Historic District, was essentially an industrial and mercantile show. At the time, the exposition was larger than any previous American exhibition with the exception of the Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876. U.S. President Chester A. Arthur opened the first annual exposition on August 1, 1883.

One highlight of the show was the largest to-date installation of incandescent light bulbs, having been recently invented by Thomas Edison (a resident of Louisville sixteen years before), to bring light to the exposition in the nighttime. 4,600 lamps, more than all the lamps installed in New York City at that time, were used.

George H. Yater writes in his book Two Hundred Years at the Fall of the Ohio:

“

The Exposition was the first large space lighted by incandescence and many electrical pioneers felt that the Louisville success did more to stimulate the growth of interior electric lighting than any other Edison plant.

”

"Birds-eye view of Louisville from the river front and Southern Exposition, 1883" by William F. Clarke

[edit] References

Yater, George H. (1987). Two Hundred Years at the Fall of the Ohio: A History of Louisville and Jefferson County, 2nd edition, Filson Club, Incorporated.