Panama-Pacific International Exposition
| Panama-Pacific International Exposition 1915 | |
|---|---|
 Award-winning advertising poster by Perham Wilhelm Nahl for the exhibition. The poster depicts Hercules at the point of the Culebra Cut , the artificial valley in which the Panama Canal flows. |
|
| General | |
| Exhibition space | 254 ha |
| Number of visitors | 18,876,438 |
| BIE recognition | Yes |
| participation | |
| countries | 24 countries |
| Place of issue | |
| place | San Francisco |
| terrain |
Fort Mason Coordinates: 37 ° 48 ′ 16.8 ″ N , 122 ° 26 ′ 48 ″ W.
|
| calendar | |
| opening | February 20, 1915 |
| closure | 4th December 1915 |
| Chronological order | |
| predecessor | Ghent 1913 |
| successor | Paris 1925 |
The Panama-Pacific International Exposition ( Panama - Pacific International Exposition) was a World's Fair , in the February 20 to December 4, 1915 San Francisco in California took place. The focus of the celebrations was the completion of the Panama Canal the year before. At the same time, San Francisco wanted to show that the city had recovered from the great earthquake .
The exhibition area covered 254 hectares at the northern end of the city. The exhibition had 18.9 million visitors. After the exhibition, most of the exhibition buildings were demolished and today's marina was built in its place.
Exhibition grounds and attractions
The coastal plain on the Bay of San Francisco between Fort Mason and the cliffs near Fort Point was chosen as the exhibition site . The western two-thirds of the area was thus inside the Presidio military base . The center of the exhibition was the 142 m high Tower of Jewels , which was decorated with over 100,000 glass crystals. The different sized "crystals" glittered in the sunlight. During the night they were illuminated by 50 powerful spotlights.
At the main entrance on the south side of the tower there was a fountain in a garden, flanked by the Palace for Horticulture on the west side and the festival hall in the east. The archway under the tower gave way to the Court of the Universe (Square Universe) with the Court of the Four Seasons (Square of the Four Seasons) on the left and the Court of Abundance (place of abundance) to the right. These squares were at the center of the main exhibition palaces devoted to various themes including food production, education, social economy, agriculture, transportation, manufacturing, mining, metallurgy, and the arts.
To the west of these central squares was the Palace of Fine Arts , the only palace building in the exhibition that still stands today and has become a kind of landmark. Further to the west stood the national pavilions in which the 24 participating countries presented their customs and products. Despite the First World War , some European countries were also represented, including Italy, France and Switzerland.
At the other end of the exhibition grounds, which extended to Fort Mason, which was still active at the time, a kind of amusement park was created. It contained one of the most noticeable attractions, the huge 20,000 square meter functioning model of the Panama Canal . Visitors were driven around there in small cars and could listen to explanations from phonographs at individual stations . There were similar models from the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park . The Indian settlements in the miniature worlds were inhabited by real Indians of various tribes from the corresponding region. In contemporary reports, in addition to the admiration for the primitive life of the Indians in these artificial settlements, it can also be read that they "were very well able to speak college slang and knew which fork to use first".
After the end of the world exhibition, all buildings except the Palace of Fine Arts were demolished as usual. Today's Marina District was built on the site of the exhibition grounds . The Palace of Fine Arts stopped so that it would fall apart, allegedly because "every big city needs its ruins". When the palace actually threatened to deteriorate, money was collected through repeated citizen initiatives to keep it in its original state. The last major renovation began in 2003.
Among the items on display was CP Huntington , the first steam locomotive to be purchased by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1863. It is now in the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento . A telephone connection to New York was set up so that people in the east could hear the Pacific . The Liberty Bell traveled across the United States on the train to celebrate the World's Fair. After the exhibition ended, it was returned to Pennsylvania and has not been moved since.
The San Diego Zoo grew out of an exhibition of exotic animals that was abandoned after the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and was established on October 2, 1916.
Memorabilia
The US Postal Service issued a number of postage stamps for exhibition. The pictures showed Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1 ¢), lock gates in the Panama Canal (2 ¢), the Golden Gate (without the bridge, which was only completed in 1937; 5 ¢) and the discovery of the San Francisco Bay (10 ¢). The collector's value of the stamps fluctuates strongly today, while a used 2-cent stamp is available for less than a dollar, a new 10 ¢ stamp can cost up to a thousand dollars. Commemorative coins were also issued, including four made of gold, with a face value of up to $ 50.
Picture gallery
Panoramic view of the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915
The Palace of Fine Arts (2003)
Model of the Panama Canal
Festival hall
Fountain of Energy and the Tower of Jewels
literature
- The Jewel City by Ben Macomber at Projekt Gutenberg or formatted
- Digitization of other books on the topic
- Erik Mattie: World's Fair . Belser, 1998, ISBN 3-7630-2358-5 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Jewel City by Ben Macomber, see literature
- ^ Esther McCoy: Five California Architects . Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York 1960, p. 6.
- ↑ Liberty Bell Attracts Crowd in Greenville During 1915 Stop , Greenville Advocate . July 3, 2007.
- ↑ San Diego Zoo: About San Diego Zoo Global ( Memento of the original from December 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved March 14, 2013
Web links
- Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Bureau International des Expositions (English). Retrieved March 24, 2017 .
- The history of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition
- JB Monaco Panama Pacific International Exposition Photo Gallery
- The Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco, 1915 (1915). From Internet Archive.
- Virtual Tour of the Panama Pacific International Exposition from the History Center at the San Francisco Public Library
- Panama-Pacific International Exposition photographic collections , via Calisphere, California Digital Library