The song “Meet me in St. Louis, Louis” arrived in 1904, the same year that the World’s Fair opened in that city. The fair sprawled over 1,270 acres, and 63 countries showed their stuff, as did many manufacturers. One of those was the American Radiator Company, and they did something very special.
The fair opened on April 30 that year and lasted only seven months. During that time, 19,694,855 people visited. Many of them spent time in the Palace of Manufactures Building and ogled the two-story house with basement that the American Radiator Company had built inside that huge building. They had commissioned Chicago’s Prairie Style architect, Hugh Garden, to come up with a house that would cost no more than $5,000 to build. That September, Engineer Review magazine reported it as “An Ideal American Exhibit,” which was a play on words since American Radiator used the name Ideal for their boiler line.