Was Nikola Tesla the Original Wizard of Oz?
The remarkable historical story that inspired “I Am the Original Wizard of OZ” from Nikola Tesla “Light It Up” — An Original Rock Opera
Chicago — May 1, 1893
On May 1, 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition officially opened in Chicago.
The Court of Honor illuminated at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. The extraordinary electric illumination of the “White City” offered visitors a breathtaking glimpse of a new electrical age.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Among the hundreds of thousands who came to witness the opening was 36-year-old L. Frank Baum, then living in Chicago.
Seven years later, Baum would publish one of the most famous stories in American literature: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
What Baum encountered in Chicago in 1893 was extraordinary.
The World’s Columbian Exposition presented an almost unimaginable vision of the future. Its magnificent neoclassical buildings became known collectively as the White City. After darkness fell, electric illumination transformed the fairgrounds into a spectacle unlike anything most visitors had ever witnessed.
Behind that transformation was one of the greatest technological battles of the age.
Tesla, Westinghouse and the War of the Currents
Westinghouse Electric Corporation exhibit of electric motors built on Nikola Tesla’s patents at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. The exhibit showcased the revolutionary alternating-current technology that helped usher in a new electrical age.
Westinghouse Electric Corporation Photographs, Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center.
Thomas Edison had championed direct current — DC.
George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla believed the future belonged to alternating current — AC.
When the contract to illuminate the World’s Columbian Exposition was awarded to Westinghouse, the Chicago fair became an enormous public demonstration of the possibilities of alternating current.
The scale was staggering.
Historical accounts of the exposition describe an overall installation involving approximately 250,000 electric lamps.
But Westinghouse faced another problem.
Because the company could not use Edison’s patented incandescent-lamp design, Westinghouse turned to an alternative design based upon the Sawyer-Man patents. The resulting double-stopper lamps could be manufactured without infringing the Edison patent.
Hundreds of thousands were required.
The stopper lamps were not as durable as the Edison design and required frequent replacement, but they accomplished their purpose.
They helped illuminate one of the greatest expositions the world had ever seen.
The Moment the Fair Came Alive
The electric button pressed by President Grover Cleveland to open the World’s Columbian Exposition on May 1, 1893. The electrical signal set the exposition’s great machinery in motion, unfurled flags and helped bring the fair dramatically to life.
Benjamin West Kilburn, 1893. Robert N. Dennis Collection of Stereoscopic Views, The New York Public Library.
At approximately 12:20 p.m. on May 1, President Grover Cleveland stood before the enormous opening-day crowd.
At the conclusion of his address, Cleveland pressed a ceremonial electric key.
The signal traveled electrically to Machinery Hall and activated the machinery that brought the great exposition to life.
Machinery began moving. Fountains erupted. Flags unfurled.
And as evening descended upon Chicago, electricity transformed the White City.
L. Frank Baum was there.
The spectacle would become part of the extraordinary Chicago world surrounding Baum during these formative years.
Historians and Baum scholars have long associated the dazzling White City of the Columbian Exposition with the magnificent Emerald City that would later appear in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
But that raises another fascinating question.
If Chicago’s White City helped inspire Baum’s Emerald City…
Who inspired the Wizard?
Enter Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was one of the central figures in the electrical revolution represented at the Columbian Exposition.
His alternating-current inventions and polyphase system were displayed at the fair, while Tesla’s extraordinary electrical demonstrations astonished audiences.
He demonstrated rotating magnetic fields, illuminated lamps without conventional connecting wires and passed high-frequency currents through his own body.
To audiences of the 1890s, what Tesla demonstrated could appear almost magical.
And then comes one of the most intriguing clues in our story.
During the Columbian Exposition, the Chicago Tribune reported on Tesla’s electrical demonstrations.
The Chicago Tribune’s description of Nikola Tesla was remarkable:
The “WIZARD OF PHYSICS”
That description appeared in Chicago in 1893 — the same year L. Frank Baum experienced the World’s Columbian Exposition.
Seven years later, Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Coincidence? Perhaps.
But the historical parallels are fascinating.
Baum was living in Chicago. He experienced the World’s Columbian Exposition and its extraordinary White City. Tesla’s technology and electrical demonstrations were part of that remarkable world. And then, during the exposition itself, The Chicago Tribune described Tesla as the “Wizard of Physics.” Seven years later, Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Did the “Wizard of Physics” somehow become the Wizard of Oz in Baum’s imagination?
We may never know.
I AM THE ORIGINAL WIZARD OF OZ
The remarkable historical connections between Nikola Tesla, L. Frank Baum and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition inspired one of the signature songs from Nikola Tesla “Light It Up” — An Original Rock Opera.
In the song, Tesla takes command of the stage and tells the story himself — with theatrical swagger, humor and the confidence of a man who believes history has overlooked the real Wizard.
A Historical Mystery
There is no known document in which L. Frank Baum states that Nikola Tesla was the inspiration for his Wizard, nor do we claim that such a connection has been historically proven.
What we do know is extraordinary enough: Baum lived in Chicago and attended the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition; the White City has long been associated with his later Emerald City; Tesla’s inventions and electrical demonstrations were part of the exposition; and during that same World’s Fair, the Chicago Tribune described Tesla as the “Wizard of Physics.”
Seven years later came The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The Article That Started Our Investigation
More than a century later, Chicago historian and writer Ray Johnson asked the same intriguing question.
Ray Johnson
Chicago Historian, Author & Researcher
In a July 10, 2014 article titled “Happy Birthday to Nicola Tesla the Real Wizard of Oz,” Johnson explored the connection between Baum, the Columbian Exposition and Nikola Tesla.
Ray Johnson, “Happy Birthday to Nicola Tesla the Real Wizard of Oz,” ChicagoNow, July 10, 2014.
Original ChicagoNow article no longer available online. A contemporaneously preserved copy of the original article is retained in the Rodgers research archive.
Johnson wrote:
“If Baum received the inspiration for his Emerald City from Chicago’s White City then it begs the question, Who was the inspiration for his Wizard of Oz?”
His answer was Nikola Tesla.
Johnson acknowledged that other historical figures had been proposed as possible inspirations for Baum’s Wizard, including President Grover Cleveland and Thomas Edison, the famous “Wizard of Menlo Park.”
But Johnson concluded:
“If I were a betting man I would put my money on the ‘Wizard of Physics’, Nicola Tesla.”
The article captured our imagination.
And we began investigating.
The deeper we looked into Baum, Tesla and the extraordinary events of Chicago in 1893, the more fascinating the historical connections became.
Eventually, that investigation found its way into the music of Nikola Tesla “Light It Up.”
READ THE PRESERVED 2014 RAY JOHNSON ARTICLE “Happy Birthday to Nicola Tesla the Real Wizard of oz”
THE HISTORY BEHIND THE LYRIC
One lyric in “I Am the Original Wizard of OZ” declares:
“The second I throw this switch, 200 thousand lights will be lit…”
The line is theatrical storytelling, but the scale behind it is historical.
Accounts of the Columbian Exposition describe an overall lighting installation of approximately 250,000 electric lamps.
Tesla did not personally press President Cleveland’s ceremonial opening-day key. The lyric instead gives Tesla a theatrical voice through which to celebrate the extraordinary electrical system and technological revolution that his work helped make possible.
Historical fact becomes theatrical imagination.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, 1900. First-edition cover illustrated by W. W. Denslow.
Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
FROM THE WHITE CITY TO THE EMERALD CITY
Was Nikola Tesla the inspiration for L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz?
We may never know.
History has left us intriguing clues — Baum in Chicago, the extraordinary White City, the triumph of alternating current, Tesla’s astonishing electrical demonstrations and the Chicago Tribune describing him during the exposition as the “Wizard of Physics.”
More than 130 years later, those clues inspired us to imagine what Tesla himself might have said:
“I AM THE ORIGINAL WIZARD OF OZ.”
From Nikola Tesla “Light It Up” — An Original Rock Opera
Experience The Power … LIVE!
I am the Original Wizard of Oz
Nikola Tesla “Light It Up” An Original Rock Opera
Written by Rodgers and Rodgers
© 2026 ASCAP
The Columbian Exhibition,
I have a gift for everyone here tonight,
Straight from my imagination.
The second I throw this switch,
Two hundred thousand lights will be lit,
One for every millennial of mankind,
Who cursed the night,
Waiting for the sun to rise.
Attention all in the Court of Honor,
To Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show,
Who have ever dreamt of an emerald city,
Seth has been dealt the fatal blow.
Fountains shooting skyward,
As cannons sound,
The first American automobile,
George Ferris’s new spinning wheel.
Electric sun will rise at night,
Illuminating the Champs-Elysees,
The Streets of Rome, Piccadilly’s Square,
The lights on Broadway,
Beckoning Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow,
To the end of the Yellow Brick Road.
The Merlin behind the curtain, the electrical god,
I am the Original Wizard of OZ.
Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus will sing,
You are a witness to impossible dreams,
The most spectacular display of lights,
The world has ever seen.
Time to celebrate, but no time to rest,
You can’t imagine what happens next,
The greatest inventions lay just ahead,
I just haven’t thought of them yet.
What Thor and Zeus could not create,
Light it up, we must not wait.
Electric sun will rise at night,
Illuminating the Champs-Elysees,
The Streets of Rome, Piccadilly Square,
The lights on Broadway.
Beckoning Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow,
To the end of the Yellow Brick Road.
The Merlin behind the curtain, the electrical god,
I am the Original Wizard of OZ.
The Merlin behind the curtain, the electrical god,
I am the Original Wizard of OZ
KNOW THE SCORE
Inside “I Am the Original Wizard of OZ”
“I Am the Original Wizard of OZ” is Tesla’s great moment of triumph in the rock opera.
For one extraordinary night, the inventor who so often struggled for recognition stands before the world as master of a new electrical age. History, mythology, science and theatrical imagination collide as Tesla invites humanity to witness what once seemed impossible.
“Welcome to the World’s Fair…”
The song places Tesla amid the spectacle of Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The fair’s White City became one of the most astonishing demonstrations of electrical illumination the world had yet witnessed. In the rock opera, Tesla becomes our theatrical guide to that extraordinary moment.
“The second I throw this switch, two hundred thousand lights will be lit…”
This is theatrical storytelling rather than a literal reconstruction of the opening ceremony. President Grover Cleveland pressed the exposition’s ceremonial electric key on May 1, 1893. But behind the drama was an enormous historical achievement: the fair’s electrical installation involved approximately 250,000 lamps, powered by the alternating-current system championed by George Westinghouse and made possible in significant part by Tesla’s revolutionary inventions.
“One for every millennial of mankind who cursed the night, waiting for the sun to rise.”
Here electricity becomes something greater than technology. For thousands of years, human activity had been governed by the rising and setting of the sun. Tesla’s “gift” symbolically liberates humanity from one of civilization’s oldest limitations — darkness itself.
“Attention all in the Court of Honor, to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show…”
The lyric captures the astonishing cultural collision surrounding the Columbian Exposition. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West operated just outside the official fairgrounds, while inside the exposition visitors encountered monumental architecture, machinery, electric lighting and inventions representing a rapidly approaching twentieth century. The Old West and the electrical future were suddenly neighbors.
“Who have ever dreamt of an emerald city…”
This is where history and theatrical imagination meet. L. Frank Baum attended the Columbian Exposition, and the brilliant White City has long been associated with his later conception of the Emerald City. The song takes that historical connection one imaginative step further and asks: if the White City helped inspire Emerald City, could the electrical genius behind its age of wonder have helped inspire its Wizard?
“Seth has been dealt the fatal blow.”
Seth, the ancient Egyptian deity associated with disorder and chaos, becomes a theatrical personification of darkness. Light has conquered night. The lyric deliberately moves Tesla’s electrical achievement into the realm of mythology.
“Fountains shooting skyward, as cannons sound…”
When President Cleveland activated the opening-day electrical signal, machinery began moving, fountains erupted and the exposition dramatically came alive. The song compresses the enormous spectacle of the fair into a few rapidly unfolding images.
“The first American automobile…”
The lyric places another symbol of technological change amid the sensory overload of the exposition. The automobile was still an astonishing novelty in the early 1890s, and its appearance alongside electric illumination, fountains, machinery and Ferris’s great wheel reinforces the song’s central idea: visitors were witnessing glimpses of a world that was about to change dramatically.
“George Ferris’s new spinning wheel.”
George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.’s enormous rotating wheel was created for the exposition and became one of its great attractions. Naming Ferris gives another inventor his place in the song while reminding us that Chicago in 1893 was a gathering place for extraordinary new ideas.
“Electric sun will rise at night…”
This is the song’s central metaphor. Tesla has not merely produced electric light; theatrically, he has created another sun — one controlled by human imagination. Science has accomplished something that earlier civilizations might have attributed to the gods.
“Illuminating the Champs-Élysées, the Streets of Rome, Piccadilly Square, the lights on Broadway…”
Tesla’s vision expands beyond Chicago. The lyric looks toward a world in which electric illumination spreads across cities and continents. The triumph at the exposition becomes a symbol of a global electrical future.
“Beckoning Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow to the end of the Yellow Brick Road.”
Now the song deliberately crosses from history into Oz. Characters who would not appear in Baum’s novel until 1900 are summoned backward into Tesla’s electrically illuminated world. It is not presented as literal history; it is theatrical time travel — allowing the audience to see the White City through the mythology it may later have helped inspire.
“The Merlin behind the curtain, the electrical god…”
Baum’s Wizard hid behind a curtain creating the illusion of extraordinary power. Tesla’s “magic,” by contrast, came from scientific principles and inventions that were real. Calling him Merlin transforms the engineer into a modern magician — a man capable of making invisible electrical forces visible before astonished audiences.
“Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus will sing…”
The imagery becomes almost ceremonial. Electricity’s conquest of darkness is treated as a modern creation story, with Tesla momentarily elevated from inventor to mythic figure.
“You are a witness to impossible dreams.”
This may be the heart of the entire song. Tesla repeatedly imagined technologies before the world was prepared to understand them. What appeared impossible could, through imagination and invention, become reality.
“The greatest inventions lay just ahead, I just haven’t thought of them yet.”
Even during his theatrical moment of greatest triumph, this Tesla is already looking beyond it. Celebration cannot hold his attention for long. His mind is racing toward the next idea — and then the one beyond that.
“What Thor and Zeus could not create, light it up, we must not wait.”
The song completes Tesla’s transformation from scientist into mythology. Thor wielded lightning. Zeus hurled thunderbolts. Tesla harnessed electrical power and helped place it in humanity’s hands. The ancient power of the gods has become technology.
THE WIZARD BEHIND THE WONDER
In the larger story of Nikola Tesla “Light It Up,” this is Tesla at his theatrical zenith — surrounded by light, invention, spectacle and seemingly limitless possibility.
The history is real.
The mythology is theatrical.
And between the two stands Nikola Tesla — scientist, inventor, showman and, for the duration of this song, the Original Wizard of OZ.
Experience The Power … LIVE!