People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1895 — EXPOSITION OPENED. [ARTICLE]

EXPOSITION OPENED.

laninie Crowd Attends Exercises nt Atlanta'* Rig Fnlr. Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 19.—The Cotton States and International Exposition was opened yesterday in the presence of an assemblage which included most of the prominent men whose names are household words in the south. The attendance at the initiatory exereises was very large. Atlanta and the towns around declared the day a holiday and all observed it by going to the exposition. The gates were opened early in the morning and the people began to pour into the grounds. Every southerner feels a personal pride in the success of the exposition. So Atlanta was en fete. The city was decorated gorgeously. Flags were flying from every prominent building and the fronts of hundreds of houses were decorated with bunting. At several points the principal streets were spanned with arches, gay in their dress of brilliant colored ornament. When Gilmore’s band began the “Salute to Atlanta” there was gathered before the main building of the exposition a crowd estimated to number 100,000 persons. The opening ceremonies began with the performance of the “Salute to Atlanta,” composed by Victor Herbert. Then the gentlemen and ladies who were to take part in the exercises grouped themselves on the platform erected opposite the door of the main building. Prayer was offered and then President Collier, of the exposition, delivered an address. Buzzard’s Bay, Mass., Sept. 19.—The gold-rimmed button attached to a wire connecting Gray Gables with a motor in Machinery Hall at the great Cotton States and International Exposition at Atlanta, Ga., was pressed by the chief executive of the United States at 5:56 o’clock last evening. This act, coming at the close of an elaborate opening program at Atlanta, was intended to furnish a fitting climax to the day’s events in that city.