The Panama-California Exposition ( Panama – California Exposition ) is an international exhibition held in San Diego , California , USA , in 1915-1917 in the city park Balboa Park . It was dedicated to completing the construction of the Panama Canal and represented the city of San Diego as the first US port to call ships going from the canal to the north.
| Panama California Exhibition | |
|---|---|
 Exhibition Map | |
| Location | |
| A country |  USA |
| Playground | 640 acres (2.6 km²) |
| Location | San diego |
| Activities | |
| Held | January 1, 1915 - January 1, 1917 |
| Organizer | Panama – California Exposition Company |
| Visitors | 3 747 916 people |
Content
History
Starting July 9, 1909, the president of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce and local businessman Gilbert Aubrey Davidson proposed creating an exposition in honor of the completion of the Panama Canal. The US government hesitated in approving this exhibition, as the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco , which was 10 times more numerous than San Diego, was also planned. [1] But in September 1909, the exhibition was approved and The Panama – California Exposition Company was formed , a board of directors chaired by US President Ulysses Grant and Vice President John Diedrich Spreckels . After Grant resigned in November 1911, Colonel David Charles Collier led the council. He actively joined in the work, but in early March 1914, due to personal financial problems, he resigned and was replaced by Davidson, who was joined by several new vice presidents.
Exposition
The official architect of the exhibition was John Howard ( born John Galen Howard ). However, disagreements arose with him and on January 27, 1911, the New York architect Bertram Goodhue was chosen, who took Irwin Gill as his assistant. In September 1911, Gill resigned and was replaced by Carleton Winslow , a renowned landscape architect. The exposition occupied about 640 acres in the territory of the present Balboa Park . Prior to this, this place was quite wild and groomed. Davidson proposed an improvement plan for the area, which during construction was named after the Spanish conquistador Vasco Nunez de Balboa , who founded the first European city in America and went to the Pacific Ocean , crossing the North American continent. Goodhue and Winslow chose the design of buildings in the style of Spanish Baroque, with elements of Persian and Neo-Moorish styles and using churrigeresco . It was new to exhibitions of the time, held in the USA and Europe and wore a neoclassical style. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on July 19, 1911. [2] The construction of the first administration building began in November 1911 and was completed in March 1912. Citizens wishing to attend the construction could do this on tickets at a price of $ 0.25 ($ 6 today).
Opening and visitors
At midnight (local time in San Diego ) on December 31, 1914, US President Woodrow Wilson triumphantly pressed the telegraph button in Washington , DC to open the exhibition. The power was turned on, lights in the park and a balloon at 1,500 feet above the park were lit. Fireworks were given at nearby Fort Fort Rosecrans and warships in the San Diego Bay.
Admission for adults was $ 0.50 ($ 12 today) and $ 0.25 ($ 6 today) for children. According to various sources, on the first day, the exhibition was visited by 31,836 to 42,486 people. By the end of the first month of her work, daily attendance was 4783 people. In July 1915, total attendance reached a million people.
Among the notable guests of the Panama-California exhibition were: Vice President Thomas Marshall , Secretary of State William Bryan and Franklin Roosevelt , former Presidents William Taft and Theodore Roosevelt , inventor Thomas Edison , automobile magnate Henry Ford . An attempt to make San Diego famous on a map in the USA failed. Even the Liberty Bell appeared at the exhibition in November 1915. At the end of this year, the number of visitors was more than two million and the exhibition made a profit of $ 56 570 ($ 1,323,254 today).
Conclusion
In 1916, the Panama-California exhibition was renamed the International Panama-California exhibition, as exhibitors from other countries appeared - Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, and Switzerland. Most of them appeared after the closing of the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition on December 4, 1915, as they could not return to Europe due to the outbreak of the First World War. To do this, I had to conduct a small redevelopment of the existing exhibition.
The California Pacific International Exposition , held at this site in 1935, was also popular - many buildings were rebuilt to become permanent pavilions, some of them are still used (as theaters and museums). In the early 1960s, the destruction of several buildings and their replacement with modern ones caused a wave of indignation among the inhabitants of the city. In 1967, they formed the Committee of One Hundred to protect and preserve the exhibition facilities and demanding that they be declared a National Historic Site. In the late 1990s, the most damaged and burnt buildings were rebuilt, preserving their original style.
Notes
- ↑ Table 22. Nativity of the Population for Urban Places Ever Among the 50 Largest Urban Places Since 1870: 1850 to 1990 . United States Census Bureau (October 31, 2011). Date of treatment November 16, 2014. Archived November 16, 2014. (eng.)
- ↑ Brandes, Ray. San Diego: An Illustrated History. - Los Angeles: Rosebud Books, 1981. - P. 129.