The Jewel City | Page 4

that summer had
given the city confidence in its ability to carry out a great festival
undertaking. In fact, it was at a meeting of the Portola committee that
the first move was made toward the organization that later became
effective.
A mass-meeting in the Merchants' Exchange, on December 7, 1909,
ended in a resolve to organize an exposition company. This found such
strong popular support that at a second mass-meeting on April 28, 1910,
$4,089,000 was subscribed in less than two hours. In two months the
subscription had risen to $6,156,840. Governor Gillett called the
California legislature in special session in August to submit to the
people constitutional changes enabling San Francisco to issue
exposition bonds in the amount of $5,000,000, and the State to raise
another $5,000,000 by special tax. In November the people of State and
city voted the two amounts. That placed a minimum of $16,000,000 to
the credit of the Exposition Company and assured the world that
California meant business.
Then followed the struggle for Congressional approval. New Orleans
demanded the right to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. All
the resources of both cities were enlisted in a battle before Congress
that drew the attention of the Nation. Three times delegations went
from California to Washington to fight for the Exposition. California
won, on January 31, 1911, when, by a vote of 188 to 159, the House of
Representatives designated San Francisco as the city in which the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition should be held in 1915 to

commemorate the opening of the Canal.
During this struggle California gave her word that she would not ask
the Nation for help in financing the Exposition. The promise has been
kept. The Government has not even erected a national building. It has,
however, helped in material ways, by granting the use of portions of the
Presidio and Fort Mason reservations, by sending naval colliers to
bring exhibits from European countries, and by becoming one of the
heaviest exhibitors. The national exhibits include three companies of
marines encamped on the grounds, and the battleship Oregon anchored
off the Marina.
After Congress had acted, half a year was spent in choosing a site. It
was at first expected that the Exposition would be built in Golden Gate
Park. A compromise among advocates of different sites was reached on
July 25, 1911, when a majority vote of the directors named a site
including portions of Golden Gate Park, Lincoln Park, the Presidio, and
Harbor View. Before 100,000 people President Taft broke ground for
the Exposition in the Stadium of Golden Gate Park. But it was not long
before the choice settled finally on Harbor View alone.
The work began with the organization of the architectural staff. The
following architects accepted places on the commission: McKim, Mead
and White, Henry Bacon, and Thomas Hastings of New York; Robert
Farquhar of Los Angeles; and Louis Christian Mullgardt, George W.
Kelham, Willis Polk, William B. Faville, Clarence R. Ward, and Arthur
Brown of San Francisco. To their number was later added Bernard R.
Maybeck of San Francisco, who designed the Palace of Fine Arts,
while Edward H. Bennett, an associate of Burnham, of Chicago, made
the final ground plan of the Exposition group. When San Francisco had
been before Congress asking national endorsement for the Exposition
here, the plans which were then presented, and on which the fight was
won, were prepared by Ernest Coxhead, architect, of this city. These
proposed a massed grouping of the Exposition structures, around courts,
and on the Bay front. They were afterwards amplified by Coxhead, and
furnished the keynote of the scheme finally carried out. While the
Exposition belongs not to California alone, but to the whole world, it is
pleasant to find that so much of what is best in it is the work of
Californians and San Franciscans.
The architects perfected the plan in 1912. At the same time the actual

work of preparing the site was completed with the filling of the
tide-land portions by hydraulic dredgers and the removal of the
standing buildings. In the same year the department chiefs were named
and began their work. John McLaren, for many years Superintendent of
Golden Gate Park, was put in charge of the landscape engineering; W.
D'A. Ryan was chosen to plan the illumination, and Jules Guerin and K.
T. F. Bitter were placed at the heads of the departments of color and
sculpture. With these details behind, the ground-breaking for
Machinery Palace in January, 1913, marked the beginning of the final
stage. In the two years that remained it was necessary only to carry out
the plans already perfected. No other exposition has been so forehanded.
When the gates opened on February 20, 1915, to remain open till
December 4, the Exposition was practically