01/19/2023
Balboa Park's Panama-California Exposition - 1915
The 1915 Panama-California Exposition was a world's fair held in Balboa Park, San Diego, California. The fair officials chose New York architect Bertram Goodhue as their lead architect. Goodhue and Carleton Winslow, who replaced Irving Gill, advocated a design that turned away from the more modest, indigenous, horizontally oriented Pueblo Revival and Mission Revival, towards a more ornate and urban Spanish Baroque.
This design was a novelty for American world's fairs and was in contrast to most previous Eastern U.S. and European expositions, which had been done in neoclassical and Beaux-Arts styles. This mix of influences at San Diego proved popular enough to earn its own name: Spanish Colonial Revival.
It was opened by President Woodrow Wilson at midnight on December 31, 1914. Admission was $0.50 for adults and $0.25 for children. Attendance on opening day was between 31,836 and 42,486, and by April, the expo had already resulted in a profit of $40,000 for the first three months.
Notable guests of the event included Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, former presidents William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, inventor Thomas Edison, and automobile businessman Henry Ford. The expo was successful in putting San Diego on the map.
*this picture is used for historical purposes only.