Travellers' Checks | America’s first serial killer inspires immersive show at London hotel – it’s not for the squeamish
American hotelier H.H. Holmes, who is estimated to have killed anywhere between nine and 200 people during the late 19th century, is also the subject of an upcoming Martin Scorsese film starring Leonardo DiCaprio
First opened to the public 125 years ago – on May 1, 1893 – the World’s Columbian Exposition covered almost 2.5 sq km of Chicago with about 200 exotic-looking buildings, parkland, water features and other marvellous tourist attractions. Two years under construction, the so-called White City attracted more than 27 million visitors in the six months that it was open.
Also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, it was the first event of its kind to feature national pavilions (from 46 countries) and amusement rides, which included the original Ferris wheel and the first moving walkway.
It was a spectacular event by any measure (and culminated in the assassination of the city’s mayor, Carter Harrison Snr) but it is less remembered today than the man most often associated with it – the hotelier, and America’s first serial killer, H.H. Holmes.
Whether his World’s Fair Hotel, located a few kilometres from the event site, was ever actually open for business is unclear, but a significant number of Holmes’ victims (estimated at between nine and 200 in total) were apparently murdered there in unusually unpleasant ways.