Petaluma’s Past: The Great Exposition of 1915

It was called the “Greatest World’s Fair ever.”

Only nine years after the huge earthquake of 1906, San Francisco pulled herself together for a “really big show.” The event was held in what is now the Marina District, but then was a just water-covered part of San Francisco Bay. Over 300,000 cubic-yards of fill created the 635 acres of land occupying 75 blocks, and that included a five-acre working model of the Panama Canal, which one could tour on elevated railroad tracks.

The opening of the actual Panama Canal was vitally important to California’s commerce as well as to the world‘s. The canal was dedicated on July 4, 1914. The Exposition opened on February 20, 1915, by means of the first-ever transcontinental telephone call. That call was from President Woodrow Wilson in Washington, and by it, the huge General Electric diesel generators were started up to light the fair.

Famed architects such as Bernard Maybeck were brought in to design the buildings. And Maybeck’s Palace of Fine Arts is now the only remaining structure from the Exposition. The fair was not only celebrating The Panama Canal. It was celebrating the new Industrial Revolution of engineering and manufacturing, with an emphasis on labor saving devices and the theme that machines would play a major role in making future life more enjoyable.

Meanwhile, World War I was raging in Europe.

The United States hadn’t yet joined the fray, but it was monitoring events and the papers were full of war news, daily. A giant British ship, the Lusitania, was sunk by German submarines, while German zeppelins were bombing Paris and London. In the U.S., Congress was hotly debating the women’s suffrage issue.

In California, Mt. Lassen chose this time for a huge eruption, sending lava streams out for 35 miles, and ash that darkened the sky all the way to Petaluma.

Fifty families had to be evacuated.

In Mexico, Generals Villa, Carranza and Zapata were waging a civil war that threatened to spill over the U.S. border, and our troops were sent there to defend it.

Kind of a 1915 version of “The Wall“?

Locally, the new Steamer Petaluma had just been placed in service, enabling one to get to San Francisco from Petaluma in only four hours and 40 minutes. California, that year, led all states in production of hops, and Sonoma County had 2,300 acres of them planted. We also sported 768,000 acres of prunes here.

Sonoma, Humboldt and Mendocino counties shared a joint display at The Exposition.

The most outstanding feature however, was a two-and-a-half story high Ferris Wheel, entirely covered in chicken feathers, with seats occupied by stuffed chickens.

Our Petaluma Argus editor J. Emmett Olmsted said that the L.C. Byce Company’s entry was, “A splendid display, where eyes of the whole earth are looking.”

Here in Petaluma, the City Council was debating the purchase of signs with actual street names for each corner. A tidy expense.

But there was no debate about one thorny issue: rescinding the permits of three of Petaluma’s cafes for “serving liquor to females.”

Oh No! Not Females! Shut ‘em down!

March 10 was designated “Sonoma County Day at The Exposition and Luther Burbank led the Parade that day. The Petaluma Girls, whose “gay eyes danced in merriment and coquetry,” marched with Burbank and Petaluma Mayor A.W. Horwege, along with every local social and fraternal organization that could walk. The “girls” were chaperoned by Mrs. Emmet Olmsted for this trip to the city, and the Argus later reported that 2,200 Petalumans had attended the Exposition on opening day. The paper also reported that, “Petaluma Chick, Lily Ramatici, won the milking contest with her gentle feminine hands.”

And yes, she was “Coquettish.”

Speaking of “girls,” on Dec. 18th, President Woodrow Wilson married his second wife, Edith Galt. This new Mrs. Wilson was to become perhaps the most powerful first lady in American history. The next day, following his wedding, the President announced that he was “pro-women’s-suffrage.” Edith, you see, had been very vocal about the women’s right to vote. That issue, which had been debated for over 30 years, was passed into law a month later.

And lest you think 1915 was all about war, voting, the automobile and booze, a front page article in the Petaluma Argus (on Nov. 12), chronicled the following.

“A four horse run-away of a team, owned By A. F. Garzoli, ran from the Hinshaw Cigar Store on Western, and turned the corner on Keller at a fast clip, where they became hung-up on a telephone pole in front of the Methodist-Episcopal Church.” (Got to watch out for them telephone poles!) But gasoline was only 19 cents a gallon then, in case Mr. Garzoli opted to switch his transportation over to one of those newfangled ‘horseless carriages.”

Some of the famous folk who attended the Pan-Pacific Exposition were these three personal guests of Luther Burbank. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone. Also attending were William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill Cody, Al Jolson and Charlie Chaplin.

When the Great Show ended in December of 1915, it had generated enough funds to build San Francisco’s new civic auditorium, further providing a $1,000,000 surplus. It took two years for the city to demolish the Exposition structures and restore the landfill.

All in all, it was a great investment for San Francisco and the Bay Area.

I wonder what happened to that chicken-feather Ferris Wheel.

(Historian Skip Sommer is an honorary member of the Petaluma History Museum and Heritage Homes. You can contact him at skipsommer@hotmail.com)