By Johnny McDonald
Supporting an Exposition
Could civic leaders again undertake huge investments like Balboa Park’s two major expositions?
There are doubters.
Richard Amero chronicled the ups and downs in his book “Balboa Park and the 1915 Exposition,” which was edited by Mike Kelly.
“I don’t believe San Diego could host an exposition today,” Kelly said. “Our exposition centennial planning fiasco supports Amero’s opinion that he made 11 years ago.”
Several years ago, historian Richard Pourade wrote that the city now lacked the necessary cohesiveness.
“Then, it was a city of friends who turned two fairs into cooperative day-by-day activities,” Pourade said. “In the last four decades, its a city of laid-back strangers.”
He had his finger on the city’s pulse because he was managing editor of the old San Diego Union.
There were many challenges to erect the 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition within a city of around 40,000 residents. Again in 1935 – 36 the California Pacific International Expo was produced in the Depression years. Those past historical accomplishments will be fully recognized with next year’s Centennial celebration.
Those expo organizers were a hardy bunch, according to Amero. He wrote that they faced some opposition; New Orleans felt it should be held there, while San Francisco drew Congressional favor to produce its Panama Pacific Expo at the same time.
But San Diego’s Chamber of Commerce board of directors pulled it off in 1915 with everlasting perfection and a legacy. San Francisco’s buildings were torn down following the single year fair run.
San Diego’s visionaries turned 1,400 acres into the city’s crown jewel of beautiful landscape and the preservation of history.
The Committee of 100, founded in 1967, was intent upon maintaining the Park’s Spanish Colonial architecture. Four remaining “temporary” plaster and wood buildings were reconstructed with permanent materials.
According to Amero, it was July 9, 1909 when Chamber president, G. Aubrey Davidson, founder of the Southern Trust and Commerce Bank, suggested the expo to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal and for San Diego as the first major port.
Davidson believed the expo would help bolster an economy still shaky from the Wall Street panic of 1907. In a big move, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. was elected president of the Chamber and John D. Spreckels first vice president. Grant, son of the former U.S. president, was part owner of The US Grant Hotel.
Spreckels was owner of real estate, hotels, newspapers, banks, utility, water, transit and railroad companies. A.G. Spaulding was then elected second vice president, L.S. McLure third vice president, and Davidson fourth vice president.
Amero suggests that the most important appointment was that of real estate developer Col. David “Charlie” Collier as director-general. He chose City Park and human progress as the theme.
At his own expense, Collier lobbied for the exposition before the California Legislature and Congress, and traveled to South America for the same purpose.
Spreckels’ subscription of $100,000 spurred donations that would soon bring $1 million.
Collier attempted to persuade the House of Representatives to approve a resolution, asking President William Taft to invite Latin American countries.
Amero said influential San Franciscans exerted pressure on Congress and President Taft to forestall San Diego’s bid and to back their exposition.
“They promised to give their support to Taft in his struggle with the Progressive factions of the Republican Party led by Theodore Roosevelt,” Amero surmised.
Department store mogul George W. Marston selected the landscape and appointed architects John C. Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. of Brookline, Massachusetts, to lay out the grounds. New York architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and San Diego architect Irving Gill designed the buildings.
“Goodhue’s celebrity status and familiarity with opulent Spanish Baroque relegated the simpler vernacular styles of the American Southwest,” Amero wrote.
San Francisco’s Panama–Pacific International Exposition was eventually held between Feb. 20 and Dec. 4 in 1915, constructed on a 635-acre site in the Marina District steps from the San Francisco Bay. The 1915-16 Expo netted $38,000 and the subsequent 1935-36 Fair cleared $44,000.
Elsewhere in the Park: A New Year’s Eve concert is planned, with art and dance shows serving as a prelude at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion from 7 to 9:30 p.m. A processional along El Prado will be led by bagpipers, followed by a variety of musical groups.
— After an award winning, 38-year sports-writing career with the San Diego Union and authoring three books, Johnny McDonald now considers writing a hobby. You can reach him at [email protected].
