by Mim E. Rivas
There was another part to this scheme: a lengthy AP story was run at the end of November 1903 in countless newspapers and read by an estimated ten million readers about Beautiful Jim Key and the expectation that he would be at the World’s Fair in St. Louis.
The concession was immediately granted.
Maggie Davis Key was thirty-nine years old when she made the trip to St. Louis, Missouri, traveling with her husband, Dr. William Key (sixty-six according to his publicist but actually seventy-one), along with Jim Key (either eleven or thirteen, depending on whom you asked, despite the fact he’d been foaled fifteen years earlier), his canine guardian Monk (age unknown), and Maggie’s two brothers, twenty-five-year-old Dr. Stanley Davis and twenty-four-year-old Samuel Davis.
Dr. and Mrs. William Key had been married under a month, an event they had postponed a few times due to the Doctor’s touring schedule, so in a way this was a kind of honeymoon. Maggie was a serene, handsome woman, with sculpted cheekbones, bronze coloring, and, like Stanley and Sam, other strong Native American traits. Possibly from that side of her heritage, she held to the belief that the camera could rob the soul and almost always refused to sit for photographs. Because the special passes issued for the World’s Fair were designed as mock passports—with visas from the various buildings stamped on subsequent pages to show which lands had been visited—photographs were required, so Mrs. Maggie Key acquiesced to having her picture taken. For the wonders she was about to witness, she would never regret it.
Nor did Doc Key regret for a second his decision to come out of his brief retirement. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition was the real pinnacle of his adventures, never to be rivaled. And part of the reason for the sense of fulfillment this fair gave him undoubtedly was his ability to share it with Maggie. Quiet, private, studious, she was the perfect woman for him at this stage of his life, someone who ultimately preferred the slower pace of Bedford County, where they would return in the winter, possibly for good, yet who could also enjoy and appreciate being part of Jim’s extraordinary ride.
Apparently, Jim Key was as fond of Maggie as he had been of her older sister, and he had his own way of communicating with the new Mrs. Key, which the Doc was glad to see. Not that he anticipated an imminent demise, but it was still reassuring to know that if the Lord took him before Jim went, Maggie would give good comfort to his dearest friend. Monk took an even more proprietary stance toward Mrs. Key than he did toward his equine charge. Besides keeping reporters and unauthorized individuals away from Jim, the black-and-white wiry-haired hound gave himself the added duties of protecting Maggie from photographers; they were then forced to take twice as many pictures of him.
The journey by train from Shelbyville to Nashville, where Jim’s entourage transferred to a locomotive bound for St. Louis, allowed the travelers to explore the breathtaking new Union Station on Broad Street, which had opened in 1900. Built in the Romanesque style favored in earlier decades—a simple, imposing look founded in heavy, natural rock and masonry, with rounded arches throughout, all to exude a sense of grandeur and permanence—the station also boasted original, modern touches that Dr. and Mrs. Key marveled at. There was the statue of fleet-footed Mercury at the top of the tallest tower, an incomparable digital clock in the clock tower, and the two alligator pools at track level in which diminutive, reportedly well-treated alligators swam about and watched humans in their frenetic comings and goings. The true beauty was inside the station, where the ticket counters and waiting rooms were housed. Gilded murals of mythological figures (including scantily clad goddesses with faces superimposed to represent Miss Louisville and Miss Nashville in homage to the L&N) gave the four-story hall a golden glow that caused the multicolored mosaic marble floor to sparkle gloriously. It was undoubtedly as spectacular a piece of architecture as anything Dr. Key had seen in his worldly wanderings.
As they say in Tennessee and other parts, to have beheld the sights of the St. Louis World’s Fair was to have lived and died and gone to heaven. Maggie certainly prized the memories and took them home with her, sharing them in detail with her sister-in-law, Essie Campbell Davis, Samuel’s future wife. The Campbell dynasty of Bedford County was another entrepreneurial African-American lineage, and the Campbell-Davis match seemed to please everyone. The stories that Maggie told her sister-in-law were later passed on from Essie to a future generation of Davises and Campbells.
Maggie, like the almost twenty million other visitors to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, witnessed an idealized preview of the century to come, with demonstrations of fantastic technologies and inventions that sooner or later would be common tools found in most American households. Appliances on exhibit were electric and steam heaters, copper boilers, knife sharpeners, candy machines, air conditioners, bread-making machines, electric and gas stoves, and electric dishwashers; also new were T-shirts, automatic player pianos, and, of course, ice cream cones and iced tea.
The St. Louis World’s Fair marked a turning point in the recognition of the buying power of American women. Though women were still sixteen years away from winning the right to vote, the women’s movement was gaining ground, evidenced even in the new fashions showing up at the fair. As corsets loosened and simpler, less-ornate dresses filled the racks, an entire gender must have breathed a collective sigh of relief, Maggie Davis Key among them, as did Clara Rogers.
Albert rarely brought his wife and three sons on his travels, but he knew that the world’s fair would be something they would relish. Fifteen-year-old Clarence and thirteen-year-old Newell were put to work at the box office while eight-year-old Archie was looked after by his pal Stanley.
Opening Day, Saturday, April 30, 1904, brought in an estimated 200,000 visitors, breaking the attendance record of 186,672 set at the 1876 Philadelphia World’s Fair for the greatest number of first-day admissions to any exposition. As the St. Louis Dispatch reported the next day with a blaring headline: “The Greatest of World’s Fairs Impressively Opened.” No one seemed to notice the haphazard choreography in which President Roosevelt turned the gold key in the White House that shot the electric current across the country before the oratory was finished, or that the flags unfurled at only half-mast, or that Director of Works Taylor stood up to speak with a hat too small for his head, since it belonged to fair president David Francis. The jubilance of the spectators and participants trumped all.
In a self-congratulatory stupor, the Dispatch ran a cartoon showing the different regional reactions to the fair. Beside a scowling man in a bowler the caption read “Chicago for once felt eclipsed,” and next to an undecided upper-crust lady was “Cold, critical and from Boston. Of course.” No less convinced was an old geezer whose description was simply “He’s from Vermont,” while a purse-lipped, top-hat-wearing gentleman had the caption “The New Yorker’s eyes were opened.” The man with the spectacles and fingers plugging his ears had a reaction that was “Too much for staid Philadelphia,” and then there was the beaming fellow whose caption said simply “Just a native.”
In addition to the Alice Roosevelt incident powering the gossip mill, Beautiful Jim Key made the newspaper coverage of Opening Day in two lead stories. The first was a feature on the five divisions of the Pike parade, in which he appeared, naturally, in the lead division. The second was a feature on the front page of the amusement section about the stampede of fairgoers on the Pike, even though it was far from completed:
The street is roughly paved as yet, heavy hauling having worn great holes in the brick coating over a soft clay foundation, and flying paper and dust mingle with piles of timber and scaffolding to give the place an unfinished air. But not withstanding the debris…the Pike was literally jammed.
Most of the attractions that weren’t completed yet gave free passes for Opening Day only, for a “taste of the good things to come,” while it was noted that “Jim Key, the educated horse, was one of the few attractions ready for business.”
The Silver Horseshoe Building on the Pike was a far cry from
the horse-shaped extravaganza that Albert Rogers had previously envisioned, though it was appropriately fanciful and beckoning, with its western theme and portraits of Jim at a lectern and hovered over his National Cash Register. Instead of hiring a barker, Albert decided to bring on the famous clown Gordon Bunch to the Jim Key ensemble. Though not really needed to draw in crowds, he was an entertaining addition nonetheless. After all the trouble Rogers had faced in getting Jim booked at the fair, he took obvious glee in printing a midsummer edition of the Beautiful Jim Key promotional pamphlet that announced:
The phenomenal success of Wonderful Jim Key at this exposition has been a surprise to all those who have builded [sic] the great shows of the Pike, many of which cost over $100,000. His beautiful theatre is crowded day and night, and though the price of admission was raised from 15 cents to 25 cents it made no difference. Jim Key is proving to be not only the most popular and best attended of all the attractions on the Pike, but will undoubtedly make the most money, net, of them all for his owner.
Albert was pushing. Why, Dr. Key probably didn’t know. Maybe Albert himself didn’t know. Then, again, his claim that Beautiful Jim Key was the most profitable concession at the St. Louis World’s Fair was true. The cost of producing the one-horse and one-man show was negligible compared with what most concessionaires spent just to open their doors. Moreover, with Dr. William Key’s consummate salesmanship, Beautiful Jim Key merchandise added to the profits, portions of which were donated to humane organizations. New souvenirs debuted at the fair, among them the Silver Horseshoe Building on the Pike’s special edition postcards, gold Jim Key pinbacks, and miniature Jim Key National Cash Register replica banks that were all the rage. The old-fashioned large souvenir buttons with their “I have seen Beautiful Jim Key” message seemed a thing of the past.
The Exposition itself was fortunate to do a little better than break even. After its original bid of fifteen million dollars had tripled, its scope expanded to cover more than 1,200 acres, seventy-five miles of walkways, more than 1,500 buildings, and a network of roadway and waterway transportation. The Central Cascades cost one million dollars to create. The Palace of Fine Arts had a price tag many times that and was one of only two buildings to survive the Exposition. The most-talked-about exhibit of the entire fair was deemed to be the U.S. Government Building, memorable for its walk-through gargantuan-scale birdcage filled with every family of bird found in America; it too lived on after the fair.
Whatever was bothering Rogers didn’t mar the feeling of triumph that Jim and Bill seemed to experience in what should have been their swan song. The Doc was not able to witness Booker T. Washington’s address to the National Educational Association on Thursday, June 30, at 11 A.M., but afterward the two reconnected after having met on previous occasions. Washington gave Key the original copy of the speech, which began with thoughts similar to those the Doctor had been having:
Every nation, race and each generation has its own special and peculiar problems. Each group of people in each period of its existence is likely to feel and argue that its difficulties are the most trying and serious. We often forget that if one generation could settle all the difficulties there would be little left for the succeeding one to do. For 250 years and more, one of the questions that has interested and permeated every section of American life has had to do with the presence and influence of the black people in America.
Maybe these words helped Dr. Key understand that though he could not cure all the ills of the world, he had played his part to fix some things. As the fair wound its way to its conclusion, he seemed to find the peace of mind that made him indicate he was now ready to go home with Maggie and say good-bye to public life. But was Jim ready to take his final bow?
The St. Louis World’s Fair had brought the Equine Millionaire a relentless string of fans and famous friends, from encounters with his old costar John Philip Sousa to his celebrated encounter with Alice Roosevelt, along with Vice President Taft and his wife, cabinet members, multitudes of state governors, and foreign dignitaries. Beautiful Jim Key met them, spelled their names, answered their questions, approved or disapproved of their politics, and began predicting election outcomes. No account emerged over whether or not he met Helen Keller when she appeared at the World’s Fair, but their proximity and presumed familiarity with each other suggests that a meeting would have been arranged. Their stories had overlapping messages. Both were born with something “wrong.” Both had miracle-working teachers who employed kindness, love, patience, and ingenuity to unlock their innate intelligence.
As far as Albert Rogers was concerned, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition planners had been proven wrong. Beautiful Jim Key, besides making more money than any concession on the Pike, also showed that he could still capture headlines and the hearts of the multitudes. Rogers felt confident claiming that at least as many as five million fairgoers saw Beautiful Jim Key, or around a fourth of the total admissions sold to the fair. For seven months, with shows running from nine in the morning to ten at night, six days a week, the Marvel of the Twentieth Century never faltered, never tired. Rogers’s numbers were not scientifically reached—and his bookkeeping proved to be fuzzy—but what was certain was that the St. Louis World’s Fair had solidified Jim’s place in history as a celebrity, his education and humane work aside.
Yet just to make sure those contributions were not forgotten, Beautiful Jim Key was further immortalized in a children’s book published in the fall of 1904. Entitled Master St. Elmo: The Autobiography of a Celebrated Dog, it was written by Caro Senour as “ghostwriter” for her educated, world-traveled English greyhound, who narrates a series of true-life adventures and epiphanies that culminate with a visit to the fair. Dedicating the book to Beautiful Jim Key, as well as its three final chapters, the dog-as-author confessed toward the end that he became concerned that if his starstruck mistress had remained at the World’s Fair much longer, she would have either eloped with Jim or spent all her money attending his shows.
While his mistress took special delight in Jim’s mathematical calculations, she was dewy-eyed over his recognition of biblical quotations and how easily he chose the correct card with the book and verse printed on it. Master St. Elmo also gave a rare description of Jim’s use of his telephone, writing, “The telephone is on the wall, and he walks up to it, takes the handle in his mouth, and turns the handle around so that you can hear the bell ring, then he places his mouth to the mouth piece, and his master takes the receiver and holds it to his ear.” Jim flapped his jaw and made chewing motions to simulate his phone chat until he heard the Doc say good-bye, his cue to hang up and mug to the audience.
Curiously enough, St. Elmo acknowledged that the special canine passport he received to enter the fairgrounds had been arranged by his cousin “Bert.” There was no identification of this cousin as the same A. R. Rogers who published the excellent little booklet that St. Elmo and Senour plugged in the fall of 1904:
I hope that after readers have become acquainted with this wonderful horse, they will think of him always, and help all poor animals who are in need of homes and kind treatment, and above all report all cases which they may see of abuse of horses, either by whipping them or by making them draw overloaded wagons. And try to keep water in your yards for the dogs, cats, and birds, and do what you can to have watering-places for horses in the streets…. There is a little book of his life and how he was taught, which one can buy for fifteen cents by sending to Mr. A. R. Rogers, 75 Maiden Lane, New York City. Long live Beautiful Jim Key!
Regardless of any connection, by 1905, with another busy season lining up, to which Key and Key could not yet say no, Albert Rogers put out a press release in celebration of the eleventh edition of the ever-evolving booklet that had now sold over 200,000 copies. More than 600,000 members had joined the Jim Key Band of Mercy, while another one million individuals had signed the Jim Key pledge. The booklet, illustrated now with twenty-five halftones, proclaimed the inimitable A. R. Rogers, was witho
ut a doubt “as interesting as Black Beauty.”
The year 1905 was a record-breaking one for Sarah Bernhardt, the legendary French actress with her “golden bell” of a voice, who had bewitched a generation and who was promising to spend 1906 in an unprecedented, nonstop, sixty-two-city farewell tour. Enrico Caruso and John Philip Sousa were likewise toppling competition from their musical contemporaries in the same year, while Will Rogers stepped onto the scene. In the wake of The Great Train Robbery and nickelodeons opening up in major cities, the motion picture era was dawning.
But 1905 was a rocky year for Beautiful Jim Key.
For starters, though Dr. Key never admitted it, his own health clearly wasn’t what it had been. He began bringing a chair onstage and sitting to the side once members of the audience began their questioning. He also was a newlywed and probably wanted to be in Tennessee, where Maggie was most of that year. But Jim wouldn’t hear of the possibility of retirement. And when the Doc even raised it hypothetically, the eternally energetic stallion suddenly became so depressed that he took to his stall, stumbling as he feigned the onset of lameness the way he did in their shows, and then plopped down on his side, refusing food or conversation. Not even Monk could get his attention.
The Doctor wasn’t fooled. Jim was pretending that he was only pretending to be in pain. Upon examination, Bill confirmed that the sixteen-year-old superstar had been masking a lot more pain than he was letting on. The description of rheumatism in Doc Key’s dependable Bell’s Hand-book to Veterinary Homeopathy (with remedies to order from Bell’s Homeopathic Pharmacy, 8 Vesey Street in New York) was straightforward: “A painful condition with tension and lameness in the affected part.” Since it wasn’t acute—which would have been “generally accompanied with fever, more or less, swelling”—the prognosis wasn’t dire. Dr. Key certainly assured the ailing star that he was going to be fine in no time, and that no decision to retire would be made without a Y-E-S from Jim.