Golden Gate National Recreational Area - The 1915 World's Fair (U.S. National Park Service)

The 1915 World’s Fair took place in San Francisco at what is today the Presidio and the Marina District. Officially called the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the fair celebrated the successful 1914 completion of the Panama Canal, which connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Locally, the 1915 World’s Fair was San Francisco’s opportunity to prove that the city, by then fully recovered from its devastating 1906 earthquake, was open for business.

Photo of the Avenue of the Palms at the 1915 World's Fair

PARC, Golden Gate

The scale and design of the fair were exceptional. The Tower of Jewels, shown here at the center of the photograph, reached 40 stories skyward and held 102,000 pieces of multicolored glass that were illuminated by electric lights at night.

For Further Reading:

The Last Great World’s Fair; San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915. Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, 2004. (www.parksconservancy.org)

San Francisco Invites the World; The Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915; by Donna Ewald and Peter Clute; Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1991

	Events - PPIE (7 Photos) Images of the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, held in 1915 on the land between the Presidio and Fort Mason. View Album \| View Slideshow

Events - PPIE (7 Photos)