Where the expo artifacts are
When the Panama-Pacific International Exposition closed on Dec. 4, 1915, 459,000 people came to bid farewell, and by Dec. 5, it all had to go — everything inside the buildings, and then the buildings themselves.
What was built of plaster and wire, which was most of it, was leveled, with only the Palace of Fine Arts saved. What was on loan was shipped back, and what wasn’t and was worth saving was offered up for sale in newspaper ads. Barges arrived. Whole buildings floated away to new homes, and some became homes in Oakland, Berkeley and Belvedere.
Souvenirs and trinkets ended up in museums and private collections. Jewel City obsessive Donna Ewald Huggins has 3,000 pieces of Expo-iana at her home in San Rafael. But she has nothing in the way of original statuary or artifacts. Since there were 11 major palaces and 100 smaller pavilions holding thousands or millions of items, the following question arises: Where did it all go? As just one example, “End of the Trail,” the monumental sculpture of an Indian warrior on horseback, was dumped into the Marina mud after the fair. The city of Visalia, in Tulare County, eventually rescued it and later sold it to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, where it is on display front and center.
For some reason, a lot of stuff from the fair ended up in New York and Pennsylvania. For some reason, not a lot of stuff ended up here in the Bay Area.
What follows is what we found locally, either out in the open or accessible in a museum, church, school, club or roadside attraction.
San Francisco
Palace of Fine Arts: Bernard Maybeck’s glorious palace rotunda is not original, strictly speaking, because it was torn down and rebuilt of sturdier materials in the 1960s.
What is original are the giant green wooden doors to the palace. Behind those giant wooden doors are twin 14-foot plaster angels that stand on pedestals near the doors. Designed by Maybeck, these were salvaged from the original rotunda. Also original are the steel truss framework to the palace and four great stone fireplaces.
One aspect that predates the fair is the lagoon, though it was not in the graceful curvaceous design it now inhabits. “Pioneer Mother” (Golden Gate Park): Along John F. Kennedy Drive, at the entrance to Stow Lake, stands a tall bronze statue of a woman with two kids tugging on her. In bas relief at its base are various forms of transit for moving west.
“Pioneer Mother” was cast in New York and shipped west in tribute to Mother’s Day, created by Congress in 1914. At the fair it stood outside the main entrance to the Palace of Fine Arts. It went into storage, only to reappear at the subsequent Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in 1939. From there it came to the park, a donation by Native Daughters of the Golden West.
Other than two paintings in storage, this is the only piece of the fair in the Civic Art Collection overseen by the San Francisco Arts Commission. “Beethoven” (Golden Gate Park): In front of the Califor- nia Academy of Sciences is a bust of Ludwig von Beethoven, staring directly at the concourse band shell, as if trying to hear a concert. The bust was donated to the city in 1915 by the German-American Auxiliary to the Panama Pacific International Exposition. Marble urn (Golden Gate Park): Inside the Conservatory of Flowers is a heavy marble urn with naked kids forming a ring around its base. It is unmarked, as is the palm tree nearby, transplanted from the fair.
Japanese Tea Garden gates
(Golden Gate Park): A gift from the sister city of Osaka, Japan, the gates were actually built for the California Midwinter Fair of 1894, and removed to the Marina for the fair. They were returned and were restored in the 1980s.
De Young Museum: Three paintings exhibited at the fair are on permanent display in the galleries. They are “Mother and Child” by John Henry Twachtman, “Winter’s Festival” by Willard Metcalf and “Spring Winds” by Joseph Raphael. Also on permanent display is “California,” a bust by sculptor Hiram Powers.
Legion of Honor: “The Thinker,” by Auguste Rodin, was a greeter at the French pavilion and now does the same duty in the entry court to the Legion.
University Club: Against a red brick wall on the sidewalk, as California Street climbs to Powell, is a bronze statue of the Greek god Hermes, with wings at his Achilleses’. Called “Resting Hermes,” it belongs to the University Club, which bought it from the Italian delegation for $300 at fair’s end.
At first, Hermes was exhibited in the fourth-floor rotunda of the club on its own pedestal. Later it was removed to the garden and eventually made its way to the sidewalk. Stolen once, it was recovered intact, and is now the easiest artifact to see without having to get out of the car. Notre Dame des Victoires: Inside the school auditorium, which is just a few steps up from Pine Street at Stockton Street, sits what is certainly the largest collection of fair artifacts still serving their intended use: 150 folding chairs.
Made of wood and still sturdy and comfortable, the chairs are joined at the hip in sets of two, like the stadium seats at Candlestick Park.
The chairs were bought at fair’s end and stored for 10 years until the school opened in 1924.
Trinity Episcopal Church: The bronze lectern in the shape of an angel came from the Tiffany exhibit at the fair. Standing 8 feet tall and weighing hundreds of pounds, it was purchased by the father of a parishioner and donated to the church at Gough and Bush streets. Trinity is currently closed for a seismic upgrade. Bill Graham Civic Auditorium: An off-site structure of steel and stone, it was put up as a joint project between the city and fair organizers. Originally called Exposition Auditorium and later San Francisco Civic Auditorium, it opened a month before the fair and was used for conventions and ancillary events. The Exposition Organ has been sitting in its basement for years. Its pipes have been restored and it awaits its centennial debut.
One Sansome Street: A. Stirling Calder, sculptor in chief for the fair, made 90 “Star Maiden” statues to gaze out from the Court of the Universe. The maidens were not built to last, but the mold was, and a single replica was commissioned by Citicorp in 1983. Called “The Star Girl,” the bronze statue stands in the open atrium of the banking center at the corner of Sansome and Market streets.
Herbst Theatre: Eight 27-foot murals, painted by Frank Brangwyn for the Court of Abundance, hang in the auditorium of the Herbst Theatre at the War Memorial Veterans Building. The building is closed for refurbishing, and the murals will next be seen when it reopens later in 2015.
Marin County
Viña del Mar Park, Sausalito: Standing along Bridgeway are twin elephant streetlight standards with a circular fountain set back between them. The elephants, named Dumbo and Peewee, stood as flagpoles outside the Court of the Universe at the fair, and were designed by the famed New York architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White. The fountain, which was outside the Palace of Education, was designed by architect William Faville of Sausalito.
After the fair, Faville and subscribers purchased the fountain and elephants, which was barged to the Sausalito pier and slid along rollers into place. The elephants were used
as flagpole standards until 1939, when the vibration started to weigh on them and they were repurposed as lighting fixtures. In 1976, they were restored, and they look unblemished by the 40 years since.
Mill Valley City Hall: A painting from the Marin County Exhibit in the California Building hangs above the entry to the council chambers. Called “Mount Tamalpais Panorama,” it is by Ettore “Hector” Serbaroli.
Mission San Rafael: Another painting from the Marin County Exhibit is in the museum gift shop at the historic mission. First displayed in the Cliff House, following the fair, it was purchased by a church patron for $400 and moved to the mission in 1976. Painted in an irregular half-oval shape, it was titled “Baptism of Chief Marin,” but is now called “Mission San Rafael.”
Downtown San Rafael: The Victor Company Pavilion, forerunner to RCA Victor, was dismantled and rafted to Marin, where it hit land and was reassembled into the San Rafael Improvement Club on Fifth and H streets. It is now listed as belonging to Rotary Manor. Aldersly Retirement Com
munity (San Rafael): The sign from outside the Denmark Pavilion made its way to the driveway of this retirement home. The tombstone-like marker reads “Denmark 7174 miles,” to rub it in for lonely seagoing Danes who were the first residents at 326 Mission Ave.
East Bay
Chabot Space & Science Center: Before the fair, Chabot Observatory in Oakland had contracted with the Cleveland firm Warner & Swasey to build a 20-inch telescope for its new observatory. A deal was cut to waive the shipping fee in ex-
change for first exhibiting the telescope, nicknamed Rachel, in the Palace of Liberal Arts. After the fair, the deal was honored, and Rachel arrived on Dec. 17, 1915, to be assembled. It has been there ever since and is open for free viewings Friday and Saturday evenings at the Chabot Space & Science Center. Oakland Museum of California: Two paintings from the Palace of Fine Arts are on permanent view. They are “California” by Arthur Mathews and “Warm Afternoon” by Guy Rose. Also on view is a dress worn by vaudeville dancer La Estrellita, who starred in “Streets of Seville,” performed in the Joy Zone. Martinez Historical Society Museum: Every county in the state was invited to place an exhibit in the California Building. Only Contra Costa County seems to have preserved its exhibit intact. The exhibit consisted of two light boxes that illuminated glass plate pictures of Byron Hot Springs, as an enticement to the resort. The light boxes, featuring their original bulbs, are in working order, though Byron Hot Springs is not. It folded, as did a hotel built specifically to handle the crowds expected to come to the hot springs directly from the fair. “The Football Players” (UC Berkeley): A bronze by Douglas Lee Tilden arrived in 1900 to become the first statue on campus. Loaned to the fair, “The Football Players” was returned and stands on a pedestal between Strawberry Creek and the Valley Life Sciences Building. Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (UC Berkeley): Dolls from the Swedish Pavilion and the model of a Chinese temple are normally on display in the museum, which is closed for renovation. The costumes worn by the Swedish dolls reappear in a dance performance at City Hall on Friday, Feb. 20. London plane trees (UC Berkeley): The manicured grove of 54 trees on the esplanade at the base of Sather Tower were transplanted from the fair to the Campanile, which opened three days before the fair closed.
Peninsula
Tea house from Japanese Pavilion: Bought by one E.D. Swift, who fancied it a residence for his daughters, it was barged down to Belmont. Three years later, it was loaded on a wagon and brought by mule train into the hills, above El Camino Real. A speakeasy called Elsie’s during Prohibition, it has variously been a bordello and a respectable saloon, and is now the Van’s Restaurant, an American steak house.
The Van’s has been expanded over the years, but the entrance and main dining room, built of redwood, are original, as is the wallpaper.
Santa Cruz County
Overfair Railway: This small railroad, one-third scale, was transported to the Santa Cruz Mountains, where it still chugs along as an amusement called Swanton Pacific, owned and operated by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.