Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1916 — NIGHT SPECTACLE AT INDIANA FAIR [ARTICLE]

NIGHT SPECTACLE AT INDIANA FAIR

Gorgeous Pageant to Celebrate Hoosier Centennial. /The most gorgeous night spectacle of the Indiana centennial year will be the historical pageant that will be given at the state fair the week of Sept. 4. It will, in fact, be the most extensive outdoor display that has been undertaken in the history of the state and on stupendous scale it will accurately review the important episodes before and since the formation of the Indiana commonwealth. It will, too, be the outstanding nignt display of the Indiana centenary, in which hundreds of costumed characters will take part, including a band of 100 genuine Indians, pioneer settlements will be set up, towns will grow, and tragedies of the wars in which Indiana had conspicuous part will be enacted.

A stage 500 feet long, appropriately set with Indiana scenic effects, will be used for the vivid history pictures, and this brilliant portrayal of Hoosier history will end with the most dazzling display of flreworks that has ever been given in Indiana.

The apectacle will be staged by J. Saunders Gordon, of St. Louis, who began preparations for it last April, when he started probing Hoosier history for the most Important episodes, and, in addition to the massed groups of French explorers, pioneer settlers, Indians, soldiers, characters impersonating the men who won the Hoosier wilderness from the Indians and from the French and developed it into the prosperous land that it is today, will take part.

LeSalle, the first of the French explorers; Col. Hamilton, British commander at Fort Vincennes; Gen. George Rogers Clark, the hero of pioneer Indiana, Gov. William Henry Harrison; Tecumseh, the Indian prophat Allen Wiley, the first circuit rider; President Abraham Lincoln, stopping in Indianapolis on his way to Washington; Morton, the war governor; Gen. Lew Wallace; Col. Shuler, the pursuer of the Morgan raiders, all have prominence in the action of this stirring centennial review. The spectacle will review Indiana history by periods. The first will show the Indians in their dally life before the white man came; the coming of LaSalle and his French followers into the unbroken forest and the starting of the first log settlement; the coming of the emigrant’s and the building of the stockade of Fort Kaskaskia. The second period reviews the war of British and Indians against the settlers, the conference of Tecumseh with Gen. Harrison and the great battle with the Indians at Tippecanoe. The third period illustrates the formation of the new state at Corydon and the meeting of the first Hoosier legislature. The fourth period tells the stirring story of the first religious work in Indiana, the building of the first church at Corydon. The fifth period reviews the part Indiana had in the Civil war, how the Hookiers the word of secession and how they rallied and marched to the. front under the Union colors. One of the most thrilling scenes or the pageant will show Morgan’s raid in southern Indiana and his retreat before the forces of Col. Schuler.