In the summer of 1893, Auguste Beaune attended the World's Columbian Exposition. A spry ninety-three years old, he was electrified, if you will pardon the expression, by the Westinghouse display of lighting. "I shall electrify my home, and the Pleasure Park", he wrote in his journal.
John Witherspoon, grandson of Rufus Witherspoon, accompanied Auguste to the fair. He, too, was inspired by electricity, and on returning to Beauneville persuaded Auguste to invest in a small company, Witherspoon Electric, to make electrical components. Leveraging the same ingenuity that built Beaune Valve Company into a prominent and profitable company -- bribery and sexual favors delivered by an exclusively young and female sales force -- John Witherspoon developed Witherspoon Electric into Beauneville's second largest employer.
But the most immediate impact of Beaune's visit to the Columbian Exposition could be seen in 1894 by nighttime visitors to Beauneville Park, as all of the exhibits were now lit up by power from Beauneville Municipal Electric Company. "Oooh!" cried the visitors, as they gazed in awe at the lighting that outlined the profile of Pharoah's Palace, Noah's Ark and the Temple of Dagon.
Beaune lived to see the turn of the century, and as long as he lived, he tinkered: new ways to distill apple brandy, new valve designs, and new additions to Beauneville Park.
On January 1, 1901, there was a great celebration of the new millenium at Beauneville Park. There were fireworks, barbecue and dancing, and spirits were only slightly dampened by the realization that the rest of the world had celebrated the millenium a year earlier.
In 1903, Beaune began to sketch what he hoped to be the final addition to Beauneville Park, a life-size replica of the Temple of David in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, before he could complete the design he died in his sleep. He was one hundred and three years old. He had outlived his governess, his wife, his mistress, his eldest son and his three daughters. Beaune's son Robert had no children when he died, and the three daughters remained spinsters. The only child that survived Auguste Beaune was the disowned John Bone, who now lived in miserly squalor in the fetid cesspool of Ticklish Rock.
Lacking heirs, Beaune willed his entire estate in trust for the benefit of Beauneville. Part of this trust endows the Beauneville schools, so local children may attend for free. The rest endows the Beaune Estate as a community center for citizens of the town, so they may have free use of the library and other resources.
Beauneville Park fared less well. To save costs, Pharoah's Palace was built of wood, with a cheap papier-mache surfacing on the front to simulate stone. Not surprisingly, the papier-mache did not weather well, and in a few years an exhibit that had once seemed daring was now incredibly lame. Young children laughed and hooted at the actors dressed as Pharoah and his concubines, and threw apples at Adam and Eve.
The martial spirit evoked by the Spanish-American War exhibits, which featured the simulated slaughter of evil Spaniards, temporarily arrested the decline. But the wiring provided by Witherspoon Electric turned out to be somewhat less than safe; a defective lighting fixture in Pharoah's Palace set off an inferno that left the building a heap of ashes. Beaune had already passed away; and the town elders responsible for the administration of the Beaune Trust could not decide whether or not to replace the building. For several years, the park continued to operate with a garden on the former site of the Palace.
As attendance declined further, the managers of the trust decided to close the park. They sold the Grand Carousel to an amusement park in Lake City, and placed the religious exhibits into storage, where they remained for some years.
In 1917, the replica of Noah's Ark and other religious objects were sold to an adventurer in Brazil who wished to build a religious city in the Amazon. Hundreds of crates were shipped to New York, where they were placed aboard the S.S. Mirabel for shipment to Brazil. Regrettably, the Mirabel was torpedoed by a U-boat off Hatteras and went to the bottom with all hands.
Beauneville Park would feature in a later event in the history of Beauneville, an event well within Roderick's memory. But that is another chapter.
