The Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition and World's Fair

The Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition and World's Fair, which formed the background of the film Meet me in St Louis (1944), took place in 1903-1904 to celebrate the centenary of the purchase of Louisiana and other territories by the USA from France in 1803. The land cost less than 3 cents an acre. The exposition's own centenary is being celebrated this year. The exhibits showed a hundred years of progress in technology and society from the perspective of 1903.