Louisiana pavilion (The Cabildo)

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In the original of this building, at New Orleans, the transfer of the Louisiana Territory took place in 1803.

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THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE DESK.

Among many remarkable pieces of furniture at the World’s Fair the most important one is the desk on which the Louisiana transfer was signed. It stands in the great hall on the second floor of the Cabildo, Louisiana’s historic building. Above the desk hangs a painting of the Marquis Pierre Clement Laussat, colonial French Prefect of Louisiana, seated at the very same desk. This interesting relic is in a perfect state of preservation although it was by no means new when the Louisiana territory became a part of the United States in 1803.

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THE CABILDO OR LOUISIANA BUILDING

The State of Louisiana had contributed to the Exposition a building of much historical interest in its reproduction of the famous Cabildo, in which the transfer of the Louisiana Purchase was consummated in 1803. This building, adjoining that of the Government, was erected at a cost of 822,000, and is of the exact size of the original, 95 by 107 feet, but it is more than a replica, the actual doors and roof of the picturesque old Spanish structure having been removed and brought to St. Louis for the new Cabildo. The interior is ornamented with choice paintings, some of them old masters brought to America by Joseph Bonaparte. There are portraits of Livingston, Monroe and Marbois, who signed the treaty between France and the United States, and of Jefferson, Napoleon, Salcedo, Laussat, Wilkinson and Claiborne; and there is a painting showing New Orleans as it was in 1803. In the collection of antique furniture in the building are two priceless pieces,—Napoleon’s china-cabinet and the desk on which the treaty of 1803 was signed. Above the desk hangs a fac simile of the great treaty that has meant so much to the nation, and whose centennial anniversary the Exposition celebrates. The gardens in front of the Cabildo suggest the beautiful Jackson Square on which the original faces, and contain a reproduction of the famous heroic equestrian statue of General Jackson.