The 1904 Cambridge Springs International Chess Congress was the first major international chess tournament in America in the twentieth century. World Champion Emanuel Lasker, who had not played a tournament since 1900, played; he did not play again until 1909. After the tournament Lasker moved to America and started publishing Lasker's Chess Magazine, which ran from 1904 to 1907. The Daily Bulletins produced by Hermann Helms proved so popular that Helms started the American Chess Bulletin as a direct consequence of the tournament. Volume 1, Issue 1 of the magazine was devoted to Cambridge Springs. Helms was somewhat more successful than Lasker as a publisher, and American Chess Bulletin was edited and published by Helms from 1904 until his death in 1963. The surprising upset victory of Frank Marshall marked his rise to prominence in American chess. and he was eventually champion of the United States for twenty-six years.

Cambridge Springs 1904 marked the end of Harry Nelson Pillsbury's chess career. He did not play in another tournament, dying in 1906 at the age of 33.

A small town in northwestern Pennsylvania, Cambridge Springs seems like an unlikely location to hold an international chess tournament. However, in the early 1900s Cambridge Springs was a flourishing resort town due to a couple of geographic oddities. The primary factor was location. At first glance nothing seems remarkable about the town, but in fact it is located on the Erie Railroad line, halfway between New York and Chicago, which made it an ideal stopover location for railway travelers. The secondary factor was the local mineral springs, which were visited by many people seeking to improve their health.

In 1895 William D. Rider Jr. started construction on what he hoped would be the greatest hotel between Chicago and New York City, which was completed in 1897. The hotel had over five hundred rooms in a seven-story structure spanning five acres. Features included a theater for five hundred, where the chess tournament was held, a ballroom, a solarium, two gymnasiums, bowling alleys and an indoor pool. The hotel grounds were equally impressive, with a nine-hole golf course and a man-made lake.

Rider was a successful publicist for his hotel, and the chess tournament of 1904 was an outgrowth of those efforts. Over two hundred reporters from around the world were present at the Rider Hotel. Financed primarily by Rider and the Erie Railroad Company, the tournament received additional support from Professor Isaac Leopold Rice and from selling tournament bulletins to chess clubs around the country. It was originally intended that the chess tournament be a yearly affair; however, Rider died in 1905 and the prospect of future tournaments died with him.

Cambridge Springs, the first major international tournament in America since the Sixth American Chess Congress of 1889, was the most important chess tournament in 1904, not matched in America until the New York 1924 chess tournament. In 1988 the U.S. Chess Championship returned to Cambridge Springs and the tournament was held in one of the few hotels remaining from the railroad resort era, the Riverside Inn.

All the world's top players were invited to the tournament. Géza Maróczy was unable to attend due to his duties as a mathematics teacher. Siegbert Tarrasch, having finished behind Lasker at Hastings and Nuremberg, was carefully avoiding tournaments in which Lasker was participating. In fact the two did not face each other in another tournament until the St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament, eighteen years after their last meeting at Nuremberg.

While most of the players were seasoned international veterans, four of the competitors, Barry, Fox, Hodges and Lawrence, competed in an international tournament for the first time at Cambridge Springs.