1904 World’s Fair Swedish Pavilion

Now, the museum remains on 15 acres along the Smoky Hillside River and is gone along with by the 1898 Smoky Valley Roller Mills structure, also on the National Register of Historic Places, along with one more eight historical buildings.

Today, the Pavilion’s future doubts. In October 2023, an engineering analysis located that the pavilion is leaning by approximately 2 levels. This tilt is apparent even to the untrained eye and thought about serious. Because of fear of architectural collapse, the structure is currently shut until updates can be made.

The structure boasts the style of a typical Swedish Estate Home, or herrgård, and honors the building past of Sweden. The pavilion was constructed as a worldwide exposition building for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, additionally known as the Louisiana Acquisition Presentation, and is among only two international buildings from the event still around.

When the fair shut, W.W. Thomas, the United State Preacher to Sweden and Norway, bought the Swedish Structure and presented it to Bethany College. It acted as a classroom, library, art, and gallery department for more than 60 years under Swedish-born artist Birger Sandzén.

With its cheerful yellow outside and unique sloping roof coverings, the Swedish Pavilion is engineer Ferdinand Boberg’s only worldwide exposition structure still standing. It is also the only instance of this distinctive building style in the United States.

In 1969, the Swedish Pavilion was moved from Bethany College to the Lindsborg Old Mill and Swedish Heritage Museum on the south side of community, and some remediation was finished. The Structure is utilized for cultural heritage events throughout the year, consisting of Heritage Christmas, Midsummer’s Celebration, Svensk Hyllningsfest (in odd-numbered years), and the Tale of Sleepy Hollow efficiencies (in even-numbered years). The structure was become part of the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.