Departures
- Like most park-goers, Burnham doesn't believe the park should be set aflame after the fair ends.
- And yet, "no one could bear the idea of the White City lying empty and desolate" (3.20.5).
- So was it better to vanish suddenly in flames than to lie abandoned?
- As things draw to a close, Olmsted begins to sever his connection. At age seventy-one, the dude's got other stuff to do.
- Louis Sullivan returns to his firm and fires a junior architect after he discovers the man has been using his free time to design homes for clients of his own. His name is Frank Lloyd Wright.
- Thousands of construction workers leave the fair and return to a world without jobs.
- Harrison puts them to work right away to keep the streets clean and dispel riots.
- Holmes also senses it's time to leave Chicago. Plus, pressures grow from creditors and families of missing daughters.
- He sets fire to the top of his castle, hoping to collect on his fire insurance. But it doesn't work.
- An attorney named George B. Chamerlin of Chicago's Lafayette Collection Agency meets with Holmes, creditors, and other attorneys.
- They deem Holmes owes at least $50,000.
- Holmes gets a tip that creditors are leaning towards arrest. He flees.
- He sets out for Fort Worth in Texas to take advantage of Minnie Williams' uncle's land. He goes with Pitezel and his fiancé Georgiana Yoke.
- He also takes out a $10,000 life insurance policy to insure Pitezel’s life. Uh oh, that can't be good for Pitezel.