<strong><p align="center">Behind the Scenes</strong></p>

From asking for complimentary tickets to a lawsuit between vendors, these materials provide a glimpse into a variety of people, events, and activities that took place around the Centennial.

<p align="center"><strong>Requesting Tickets</p></strong>

For Carroll County Day, T.H. Baker of McKenzie asked J.W. Thomas to send tickets and a personal invitation to former governor Alvin Hawkins of Huntingdon. He was “very old and very poor,” according to Baker. He also asked for tickets for Carroll County’s thirteen-piece brass band. They were “all laboring men & boys & are willing to lose time” to attend.

<p align="left"><strong>_{<a href=https://tsla.tnsosfiles.com/digital/teva/transcripts/52698.pdf>Click Here</a href> to read the full transcription.}</strong></p>

Senator William B. Bate helped arrange the travel for President William McKinley to attend the Centennial Exposition. In this letter, Senator Bate states that the President preferred to attend on "Ohio Day" on June 11th, 1897.

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W.S. Huggins of Murfreesboro requested tickets for his daughters who would be attending with out-of-town guests.

What I want is to know how it can be managed to keep the Centeniel (of which you are President) from bankrupting me. I and my wife have many kilnfolks [sic] in Allabama [sic], in Kentucky, and in this State, besides many acquintances [sic], and our kilnfolks [sic] has kilnfolks [sic], and acquaintances [sic]. Well evry [sic] mothers [sic] son of them, and Daughters too, is fix up to come to the Centeniel [sic],…

Most of them are strangers to the city, & city ways, and will want one of my Daughters (of whom you know I have a number) to champrone [sic] them to the Centeniel [sic] & back, and the last thing the most them will think of is to pay my Daughters way into the Centeniel [sic]…

<p align="center"><strong>_{<a href=https://tsla.tnsosfiles.com/digital/teva/transcripts/52934.pdf>Click Here</a href> to read the full transcription.}</strong></p>

<strong><p align="Center">Working at the Centennial</p><strong>

Hundreds of employees traveled into the Centennial City every day for work. However, the trains left before their closing shifts. The Lion Roof Garden restaurant requested an extension of final departure times so their employees could use the trains to return home.

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For the duration of the exposition, it was incorporated as its own city within the borders of Nashville. This allowed the formation of public amenities like a police department, which was known as the Centennial Guard.

The Centennial City built a Black hospital and a white hospital for visitors. The hospitals served a combined average of 30 people a day and treated over 4,610 cases of illnesses and injuries.

<p align="center"><strong>Train Travel</strong></p>

Reverend C.H. Clark and Dr. Richard H. Boyd were two influential Black leaders who served on the Centennial Negro Executive Committee. After the men were forced out of a railway station, Clark submitted a statement to J.W. Thomas. At the bottom of the typed page,, there is a note written in the symbolic writing system called shorthand. The writer, possibly Thomas, requests that the necessary information be furnished to Clark before their meeting.

Clarke [sic] says it is his desire to have on exhibition here the work of the colored Baptists; they were informed by Major Thomas there would be no prescription or discrimination as to the negroes coming from the North.…If Major Thomas has changed his statement, they would like to be informed of the fact.

<p align="right"><strong>_{<a href=https://tsla.tnsosfiles.com/digital/teva/transcripts/52688.pdf>Click Here</a href> to read the full transcription.}</strong></p>

<p align="Center"><strong>Yellow Fever</strong></p>

During the exposition, many Southern cities battled the 1897 Yellow Fever epidemic. Some local governments required health certificates and quarantines. The Georgia Railroad Exhibit Commissioner inquired about the exposition’s requirements in preparation for a special excursion.

While Nashville did not have requirements, it appears the man in the photograph is covering his face with a mask or handkerchief possibly due to the epidemic.

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<p align="right"><strong>_{<a href=https://tsla.tnsosfiles.com/digital/teva/transcripts/52696.pdf>Click Here</a href> to read the full transcription.}</strong></p>

Railway agent W.J. Edwards sent J.W. Thomas a report of the 3,656 special excursion ticket sales from Union City. The $2.80 ticket price covered the cost of travel and admission. Edwards noted that the impact of yellow fever and the distance from Northwest Tennessee to Nashville “kept many from going.”

<p align="left"><strong>_{<a href=https://tsla.tnsosfiles.com/digital/teva/transcripts/52706.pdf>Click Here</a href> to read the full transcription.}</strong></p>

<strong><p align="center">Vendor Lawsuit</p></strong>

This image was Exhibit #1 in the 1903 Tennessee Supreme Court case J.B. Ellison v. W.P. Spain, owner of the Palace of Illusions and Mirror Maze. The men accused each other of financial fraud during the exposition.

<strong><p align="center">Lodging</p></strong>

Vanderbilt University rented campus dormitories to out-of-town visitors during the exposition.