Lewis & Clark Centennial & American Pacific Exposition & Oriental Fair: The Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair of 1905—the first world’s fair on the West Coast—offers a window into the history of Oregon.

The Booster City: Portland started the twentieth century with a flourish of self-promotion, the most spectacular example of which was the Lewis & Clark Exposition.

Business Leaders & the Exposition: The Lewis and Clark Exposition drew on the same leadership as other booster efforts in the new century.

The Exposition & the Nation: Initial plans by Exposition leaders included the effort to lobby state and federal officials for financial support.

Designing the Fair Grounds: Landscape architect John Olmsted designed the Exposition grounds on leased and undeveloped land around Guild’s Lake in Northwest Portland.

The Fair as Entertainment: Fair goers had a number of choices when it came to entertainment, ranging from band concerts to Princess Trixie, the educated horse.

Celebrating Settlement: Agrarian Oregon: The era of the Exposition was also a time of agricultural optimism throughout the state.

Coos County at the Fair: Coos County erected its own building at the Exposition to laud its growing economy.

Making a Timber Industry: Designed to celebrate the state’s timber industry, the Forestry Building was Oregon’s unique contribution to the architecture of world’s fairs.

A Helping Hand from Washington: Oregon’s Exposition coincided with the national era of a federally-sustained frontier. 

Engineering the Future: The Exposition opened fair goers to the idea that the twentieth-century landscape of Oregon and the American West would be reshaped rather than simply utilized.

Oregon Grows: The technological complexity that reshaped Oregon’s landscape allowed for a dramatic rise in population. 

America's Pacific Vision: The Lewis & Clark Exposition reflected the new Pacific imperial vision ushered in by the Republican administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

The Panama Canal & Urban Rivalry: Work on the Panama Canal kindled interest in Pacific trade, an interest shared by Exposition boosters.

Asia at the Fair: Japan’s presence at the Lewis & Clark Exposition proved to be the largest from among the Asian nations that participated.

The Rise of a Pacific Rim Economy since 1905: The Lewis & Clark Exposition and other West Coast fairs shifted America’s economic focus toward the Pacific.

The Exposition & Native Americans: The most prominent Native American presence at the Exposition was inanimate—the bronze statue of Sacagawea that would later stand in Portland’s Washington Park.

A Century of Change: The white resettlement of the Oregon Country brought massive changes to the Native cultures of the Columbia River and Willamette Valley.

Interpreting Imperial Conquests: Arrogant "Anthropology": The Centennial Exposition exposed fair goers to an array of ethnic groups at a time when social Darwinist ideas grouped cultures along a “progressive” continuum from savagery to civilization.

The Dynamics of Ethnic Change: At the time of the Exposition most of Oregon’s population could trace its lineage to white and northern European groups.

Oregon's New Immigration: By the start of the twenty-first century Oregon’s multicultural complexion was more pronounced than at any time since the 1880s. 

The Electric Century: The Promise of Technology: If steam power placed its indelible imprint on the nineteenth-century landscape, the twentieth century promised to be an era of electricity.

Electricity and Industry: Portland offered a vision of industrial development at the gateways to the Columbia Gorge during the mid-twentieth-century’s dam-building era.

The Electronics Industry: The electric industry of the 1920s and 1930s evolved into the high-tech electronic industry of the twenty-first century.

The Impact of the Exposition: By the end of the Exposition many visitors agreed that Portland had joined in the “great march of progress.”

Looking toward the Future: The success of the Lewis & Clark Exposition reminded the nation that, despite the upstart cities of Seattle and Los Angeles, Portland was still a place to be reckoned with.