[Looking down Midway after a rain, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904?]

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Rain-darkened pavement stretches down the Midway, the broad avenue of exhibits and amusements that ran through the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. The fair, held in 1904 to mark the centennial of the 1803 land deal that doubled the nation's territory, drew millions of visitors to its grounds in Forest Park. The Midway was where the lively attractions gathered, including ethnological villages and mechanical rides, and a wet day would have thinned the crowds and left reflections on the street. Frances Benjamin Johnston, a Washington photographer who documented the fair, made the picture, though its date is marked with a question mark and should be treated as provisional.

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