February 1:  Mrs. Weiss, residing at 662 Ellicott Street, is rejoicing over the return of two diamond rings, valued at $150, that she lost. While at the Pan-American Exposition grounds several days ago, Mrs. Weiss lost the two rings from a chatelaine bag, presumably by being in the folds of her handkerchief.  The rings were found by Patrolman Charles A. Mahl, who turned them over to Col. John Byrne, commandant of the police. Col. Byrne advertised the find in the columns of the NEWS and through this instrumentality, Mrs. Weiss was made happy by the recovery of her lost valuables.

February 2:  Another apartment house is to be turned into a hotel during the Exposition. Martin C. Ebel of Brooklyn, general manager of the International Navigation Company, which is to run a line of boats between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, yesterday leased of the owners The Hudson, a handsome apartment building on Hudson Street near Plymouth Avenue, and will make it a hotel for select parties of Brooklyn people who come here this summer...

February 3:  Five handsome gateways to the Pan-American Exposition have been contracted for by Director of Works Carleton. The five are to be built by Rasmussen and Strehlow, at a cost of $8994.  They will be located at Lincoln Parkway, Elmwood and Delaware Avenues at Amherst Street, Elmwood Avenue opposite the Country Club, and the Belt Line station on the north side of the grounds.

February 4: 'When F. E. Dawley and S.A. Willard, the commisssioners who have charge of the State Horticultural exhibit, visited the Buffalo Cold Storage Warehouse yesterday to see the condition of the fruit kept there for exhibition at the Pan-American Exposition next summer, they were delighted to find all in splendid condition. There were 180 barrels of apples in cold storage, and every apple was as fresh as when gathered. The boxes of pears, plums and peaches were in equally good condition.

Owing to the scantiness of space for the innumerable fruit exhibits Director Taylor has been forced to apply the system of rotation in office to the various fruits exhibited. Thus certain varieties will be exhibited for two or three weeks, to be succeeded by pears, plums, peaches, grapes, each being featured in the display according to the season of its maturity. Even by this arrangement Director Taylor expects to be swamped by the fruit exhibit.'

February 5:  Paid admissions to the Exposition grounds numbered 98, of which five were at half rate, making the total gate receipts $24...

February 6: Cat clubs of Chicago, Newport and Classic Boston are reported to be manifesting unprecedented interest in the forthcoming Pet Stock Exhibition at the Pan- American Exposition.  The Boston enthusiasts have announced already that they have secured 50 entries. Among these is one cat valued at $1600. Chicago has announced that whatever bluffs Boston and Newport may make, the Windy metropolis will raise them. The result is sure to be the greatest cat show at the Exposition that has ever been produced...

February 7: Director of Color Turner is annoyed by a large factory chimney north of the grounds which deposits a layer of soot daily upon the gaudily painted surfaces of the Exposition. The owners of the factory say they are willing to use a smoke consumer if a good one can be found.

February 8: Frederick Thompson, of the firm of Dunnavant & Thompson, contractors and builders at 706 Ellicott Square, received painful injuries in a fall from a scaffold in his Trip to the Moon building in the Midway. He was inspecting some work when he made a misstep and toppled off the scaffold about ten feet from the ground. In falling his side encountered a joist which checked his descent for a moment, but eventually he landed on the frozen earth.  He was taken to the hospital in the Service Building, where it was found that the side that struck the joist was badly strained and contused, and that he had sustained a number of bruises as well.

February 9: Hundreds of persons who have been inquiring about Pan-American rooming bureaus through the NEWS will be glad to learn that the Exposition Company has decided to maintain that department on its own account. The Exposition Company will have an office at the grounds, where persons seeking rooms may apply for information and be directed to rooms on the list taken by canvassers of the Company last spring.

The information will be supplied to room-seekers free of charge, and on the other hand those who have rooms to let will not be charged for having their rooms placed on the list. On the contrary the Exposition Company desires to have the list as complete as possible, and to that end will be glad to have anybody who was overlooked by the canvassers send in their names, addresses and the number of rooms at the disposal of guests to Supt. Devlin of the Bureau of Registration in Ellicott Square.

February 10: Settees sufficient to seat 20,000 persons have been ordered placed along the banks of the canal.

February 11: It is learned that Colombia and Venezuela will not be represented at the Exposition. They need their money for revolutions.

February 12: The railroads of the Trunk Line Association have sent out notices that they will not store coaches in Buffalo next summer. This will prevent parties living in the chartered cars while visiting the Exposition.

February 13: Jane Doxtater, accompanied by her granddaughter, visited the Six Nations Village at the Pan-American Exposition grounds yesterday. Mrs. Doxtater is the daughter of Mrs. Nancy Johnson, the squaw whose century-old cabin was taken from the Tonawanda Reservation and re-erected on the Exposition grounds. Mrs. Doxtater was born near Geneseo some time between 1800 and 1805. She is therefore between 95 and 100 years old. She will accompany her mother, who is about 120 years of age, to the Exposition next summer.

She had no difficulty in walking from Amherst Street, through the snow, to the part of the Exposition grounds where the Six Nations exhibit is located, a distance of half a mile, and return.

She remembers when the Indians lived in bark houses and wore skins and nothing on their feet but buckskin moccasins; and when they subsisted chiefly on the game which they could kill with their bows and arrows.  Mrs. Doxtater has three children living, and a number of grand-children.

February 14: The prices of admission to the Pan-American Exposition on and after the first day of May will be as follows:  children under 7 years, free. Children between 7 and 14, 25 cents. All persons over 14, 50 cents.

The average number of paid admissions to the grounds these days is 150 for week days and 600 on Sundays.

Supt. Cash of the department of admissions has decided upon the three gates where workmen's passes will be received during the Exposition. The three will be the gates at the Amherst street entrances and that near the Women's building. The scheme for the admission of workmen calls for passes marked with different transverse stripes for each month, blue for May, pink for June, etc. The passes will bear one cross bar for the first fortnight of each month and an additional one at right angles to the first for the second fortnight.

February 15: Quoted from the Gazeta Buffaloska: 'This is the Pan-American year and the Poles of Buffalo and the United States are taking an active hand in bringing success to the Exposition - which it fully deserves. It is but well to state that the Poles are working like beavers to have a day of their own at the Exposition. They have held a number of gatherings and the idea has caught on everywhere, in fact every Polish colony in the States is interested in the enterprising way the Poles of Buffalo intend to show their standing. A delegation of prominent Polish businessmen of East Buffalo will call shortly on the Director-General of the Pan-American Exposition and lay before him the plans undertaken and then the real work will begin.

For the information of our American friends we will say that the Polish Singers' Alliance of America will hold their convention in this city during the Pan-American Exposition and concerts will be given on the Polish day - provided the management of the Exposition consents to name such a day - which we hope will be accorded the Poles for their active part in the great enterprise. This convention will no doubt bring many a thousand of our countrymen to the city and together with their Buffalo brethren no fewer than 25,000 Poles will celebrate Polish Day at the Exposition.'

Ed note: Polish Day at the Exposition was officially scheduled for September 12

February 16: The Board of the Park Commissioners has given the Pan-American Exposition authorities permission to construct a handsome electrical fountain in that section of the Park Lake known at the North Bay. Supt. Graves, when seen yesterday, said that beyond a doubt the Exposition company will spend several thousand dollars on the fountain.

Just how soon work will be started depends upon the speed with which the Exposition company rush through its plans. When the fountain is installed it will undoubtedly be very effective.

"Some time ago the board contemplated putting into the bay a fountain of this sort, with alternating electric lights of different colors," said Gen. Graves, but somehow or other the project was dropped. "It would be a nice thing is the Exposition people would put in a permanent fountain, but I don't think they will."

February 17:  Director of Works Carleton says that as far as any anxiety over getting the Pan-American Exposition ready by the opening day is concerned he is eligible for the Don't Worry Club. He says the greatest difficulty at present is placing the Goddess of Light upon the Electric Tower.

February 18: A number of interesting and timely sermons were preached in Buffalo churches yesterday. Rev. Moses Hull, pastor of the First Spiritual Church, Prospect Avenue and Jersey street, spoke in favor of opening the Pan-American Exposition on Sundays and denounced the effort of other churches to have it closed.

The opposite view was talked by Rev. Israel Wistar Hathaway, D.D. general secretary of the American Sabbath Union, at the First Baptist Church, North and North Pearl streets. The text was the well-known one from Exodus, xx., 8:"Remember the Sabbath to Keep it Holy." At the close of the sermon a vote was taken on the question discussed and every person in the audience arose in favor of Sunday closing.

Rev. Price A. Crow, pastor of the Summer Place M.E. Church, called his discourse a "Battle for the Sabbath," which indicates his views on the subject of closing the Exposition on Sundays.

Rev. L.M. Powers of the Universalist Church, North and Mariner streets, expressed the opinion that it would be better to allow men and women to go to the Exposition on Sundays than to choose between the church and saloon. "The Lord's Day is made so exclusively the Lord's that it often gets in the way of the largest usefulness and services to man," said he. "Better far let men choose to see the instructive and beautiful sights of the Pan-American on Sunday than compel them to choose either a saloon or a church. Those who find the church helpful will go to church anyway. The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath."

February 19: Bruce Ellis, superintendent of the freight department of the Pan-American Exposition, has receieved bills of lading for several carloads of exhibits, and is expecting the arrival of the cars today. One carload of 23 cases consists of a statue of Washington by C.D. French, four plaster quadrigae for the Temple of Ethnology by Phinister A. Proctor, two pumas by the same sculptor and a painting by Robert Reed. All of these are the works of American artists and were exhibited at Paris, being part of the cargo of American exhibits recently brought over on the Prairie.

Story 2: In the propagating houses, in frames and in beds blanketed with leaves and straw and coverleted with snow, all clustered in a comparatively unfrequented part of the grounds, C. H. Sierman, the head gardener and his staff of assistants, are quietly preparing the millions of trees, shrubs and flowering and foliage plants which are to be used in embellishing the Pan-American Exposition grounds next summer.

The time for transplanting the most of the plants is only 10 weeks distant, but so effective have been the preparations of this department of the landscape gardening of the Exposition that as soon as the weather permits the flowers that will cause the now dreary grounds to bloom like a flowery paradise will be all ready for their appointed place.

In two long greenhouses there are hundreds of palms which are relied upon to add the needed tropical setting to the Spanish renaissance style of the architecture prevalent in the buildings. Among the varieties seen are the Chamaerops Exelsa, Braliea Filimentosa, Phoenix Canariensis, Dracaena Indivisa, Dasiliryion Gracilis and Erythea Edulis. They were brought from California last fall and have survived the Northern winter thus far without injury.

Another greenhouse is set apart for orange trees. These were poorly packed for shipping hither and have suffered accordingly. Still there are enough of them saved by the most careful nursing to take their place amongst the ornamental trees on the ground next summer.

The 500 American cedars which were brought here from New Jersey are flourishing. Only two have died. As it was asserted that these trees would not bear transplanting, Mr. Sierman regards the results achieved as a personal triumph.

February 20: The Automobile Club of America has issued a challenge to the world for an endurance race from New York to Buffalo, the race to take place the last week in August or early September.

For the event, and also for a series of international races that are to follow, the club will offer prizes, cups and medals to a cash value of $5000.

Automobilists of every nation are invited to participate. The course is a trifle over 450 miles. The maximum speed allowed is 15 miles an hour. If a machine falls below six miles an hour it is to be ruled out of the race. The route is to be up the Hudson to Albany and thence across the state to Buffalo. President A.R. Shattuck was authorized today to appoint a committee to fix definitely the route.

It is intended to start the race from New York City. It will end in the Stadium of the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition, where an automobile fete lasting one week is to be given. One feature of the week in Buffalo is to be a 100-mile race over a course including some of the finest streets of Buffalo. In this race the speed is to be unlimited.

There will also be an obstacle race and races to test the mobility and economy of the various types of motor vehicles.

These races are to be under the direction supervision of F.R. Tousey, acting secretary of the club. It is estimated that at least 200 "Autos" will take part in the big race.

February 21:  Exposition Board Secretary Fleming received the following letter from a South Dakota farmer this morning:

"Dear Sir, Please send me 2 bushels of your Great Pan American Oats for to sow in the Spring and I promise to send you haf the crop in the Fall. Please send it as soon as possible."

February 22:  Preparations are being made for Firemen's Week at the Pan-American Exposition assure its being one of the most interesting of all those planned for next summer. The $2500 in prizes being offered by the Exposition Company are attracting  the leading fire companies from all over the country. Among those which are already entered are the Steam Fire Engine Company of Kansas City which took the prize at the Paris Exposition, the Ithaca Hose Company, the Red Jacket Veteran Fireman's Association of Cambridge, Mass., with its hand engine which is said to be one of the finest in the world, two Tonawanda companies and about 75 from Canada and from cities within a radius of 50 miles of Buffalo. All of the events will be held in the Stadium.

February 23: The contract for 1,850 chairs for the Temple of Music has been awarded to Randolph McNutt of this city.

February 24: The chair concession, which includes furnishing sitting facilities for all functions outside of the Stadium, has been let to Maj. T.S. Clarkson. The roller-chair concession has been awarded to B.B. Doggett of this city. He will have the hiring of the men who roll the chairs.'

February 25: Despite the fact that a blustering wind held sway in the Exposition grounds yesterday, 350 persons paid admissions to view the various buildings. The average daily attendance during week days is about 55 and that of Sundays 600.

The significance of this proportion is not lost upon the managers of the Exposition. They argue that the larger attendance on Sundays is a sign that the majority of people demand open gates on Sundays. It is believed that the same proportion would mark the attendance after the Exposition is completed.

February 26: The Michigan Central railroad is making arrangements to erect 50 sign boards, 16 feet square, containing Pan-American advertising matter in Chicago. The road will also locate one ore more in Kansas City, Dubuque, Omaha and other cities along its lines.

February 27: Seth C. Bassett of Haverhill, Mass., arrived in Buffalo this morning for the purpose of making arrangements to conduct excursions to the Pan-American Exposition next summer. He reports that many people in Eastern Massachusetts are planning to see the Pan-American, stimulated by the three-fold attraction of the unrivaled fame of the beauty of the Exposition, its nearness to Niagara Falls, and low railroad rates. Charles Schneider of Baltimore is organizing a bowling team which he intends to bring to the Exposition to meet all comers for the bowling championship. The team will be composed of bowlers who can make 950 pins at minimum.

Brooklyn Knights of Columbus are organizing a mammoth excursion to the Exposition next summer.

Binghamton has a drum corps, composed of negroes, which has organized to act as musical escort to clubs and societies visiting the Exposition.

February 28: Iowa has decided not to be represented at the Pan-American Exposition. This decision was reached pursuant to the advice of the State Horticultural Society, to which the proposition had been referred.

The reply of the directors was discouraging for an exhibit. It stated that Iowa can hope for nothing from any exposition, as she lacks anything worth the advertising. It was pointed out that the only way she could get up a good exhibit would be to buy it from other States and the fraud would surely be discovered. As to the futility of erecting a State building on the Pan-American grounds, it was argued that it would be useless to do so because the poor farmers that constitute the majority of the population of the State would be too busy with their scanty crops to attend the Exposition, even if they could place a third mortgage on their farms to raise the price of the necessary funds.

Upon this discouraging report the proposition was abandoned.