San Diego Historian Chronicles Balboa Park 1915 Exposition In New Book

MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: This is KPBS Midday Edition, I am Maureen Cavanaugh. San Diego has a big anniversary celebrated next year, it's the annual 100 anniversary of the that put the city on the map. The 1915 Panama California exposition drew national celebrities and international attention and created much of the Balboa Park and we know today. But did you know that San Diego competed against San Francisco for the right to hold the exposition? Did you know that the organizers of the 1915 extension were afraid that they'd have to close the event on the month and because attendance was so low? And did you know the exposition actually gave Balboa Park it's name? As he approached the Centennial the new book is out that describes the dreams and determination that drove small town San Diego to put on a world-class event. I would like to introduce my guest Michael Kelly, editor of the book ìBalboa Park in the 1915 Exposition.î MIKE KELLY: I should credit Richard Amero who is the author of this. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: That was the first question I had for you, you added the book and took it upon himself to document the history of Balboa Park, what kind of artifacts that the uncovered that led to this book? MIKE KELLY: I don't know about artifacts, he did a lot of research and libraries around the country, and she read newspapers and from 1909 to 1916, and he delved into every bit of detail that he could possibly find, he was a true researcher and he loved it. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: It shows, and it's very detailed in the book and it is quite readable, sometimes histories of her not as readable. MIKE KELLY: Perfectly a problem. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Let us start with the name of the event, what San Diego had to do with the opening of the Panama Canal? MIKE KELLY: A good deal, we saw ourselves as the first port of call, on the West Coast note north of the Panama Canal and we thought that it was tiredly proper to hold the international exposition, but San Francisco with a was ten times as large as we were, we had a population of less than 40,000 people and they had a lot of local power as well. US government gave them the official nod to be the international exposition and we cannot call yourself until the second year when San Francisco had closed down and we did bring in some foreign countries. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Theirs was more like a world fair in a way, because exhibitions and world affairs were very popular around the beginning of the last century, but was these was the San Diego exposition based on any the previous ones like White City in Chicago? MIKE KELLY: They probably all looks like White City because that was the great and greatest and largest exposition ever in the United States, but our style of architecture was different and our sites was much smaller, and we decided that rather than showing objects that were made in modern equipment for the kitchen or the home, that we would show how things were made and for the most part, the exhibitors try to do that and had working models for people to see. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: It was in the same vein as some of the other expositions and other world affairs, and the idea of building certain of these fantasy buildings based of course on Spanish architecture, but they were basically built for the exposition. MIKE KELLY: Absolutely, and truly every exposition does that and many of them in the classical style and ours was unique in the sense that we hired someone ultimately to have had the design for these buildings and he did not want them all to be here today, he wanted the three that he designed to stay and that is the California building, the low building across this street with the Museum of Man exhibits, and we are just surrounded by those. The rest of that we wanted to return to gardens. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Was anything ever attempted like this before by such a small city? MIKE KELLY: I believe were the smallest ever. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Setting people are underway and a part have sort of been dissed by the fact that the federal government and San Francisco takes about five years for them to put together the resources and the plans to get ready for the exposition, what buildings that are still in the park were built for the exposition? MIKE KELLY: The ones that I mentioned and also the botanical building and left house, they were built for the exposition and it was intended to be more permanent, it was not one of good use desires designs, and the New Mexico building which is not a Balboa Park club that was meant to be permanent, and the organ. Pavilion which a believe that you did not care for, and it was designed by another architect altogether it was office was to be permanent, and the four other buildings that are there now, Casa Del Balboa and the Casa Del Prado have all been reconstructed more or less the designs of the originals. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Their fabulous pictures in the book that really bring you back to the time and place and the picture of the family moving about the exposition and something called an electric cat. MIKE KELLY: Oh the electric cats, we hope that they will make a return and there is a plan developed to reproduce these and build one toward the production and as improvement on those original models. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Tell us what they are. MIKE KELLY: They do not look like golf carts, their open air and with a bench seat back in hold two or three people and there's a little bar that you can steer with and go to or 3 miles an hour around the park, and there was at the time of the exposition there generally were no automobiles or trucks in the public area so you could go almost anywhere. We have a limited situation now but it would still be a wonderful thing to see back at the park. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Give the feeling, you already said that one of the ideas of this exposition were to show people how things were created and not things for the future, but things and actually how they were manufactured, how the Indian population made what they made, how things were actually constructed, what kinds of events and what kinds of things with people see when they can put the exposition? MIKE KELLY: Some of those made the greatest stories, we had aviators and the Navy would fly in from North Island at half that of an mock battles with the infantry and the Marines who were already in's in the park and that happened frequently, there were jokes and parades and events every single day and three or four a day, and concerts every day, it was a wonderful and lively place. Lots of good stories. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: And I think that people maybe are not as familiar with the fact that I believe that the exposition was only supposed to go for a year, but as you told us it's sort of lasted an extra year and became the international exposition, tell us how that came about. MIKE KELLY: I think everybody loved it so much in San Diego and got to the first year with a small profit and part of this whole thing was not just to celebrate the opening of the Panama canal which had opened a few months earlier before the 1915, but was to show San Diego the world and to bring people and business and it's really did that, but it also brought up the greater the only military presence which turned out to be a very important thing for San Diego's future. Teddy Roosevelt spoke during the exposition, that encouraged San Diego to continue for another year. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: I think that is right, and the fact that president was there, there were a lot of famous movie stars and actors. There were dozens of congressmen and mayors and governors. The city that some people still called Santiago instead of San Diego. MIKE KELLY: We were little known at the time. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: When became an international exposition there a couple of things that were going on, I read about that there was a move to get that closed by the District Attorney's Office. MIKE KELLY: And one of the most closed and events was the forty-nine, which had a lot of gambling and gambling was a serious concern, the think it may been closed down several times, but survives through the first year lease. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: At a 1915 exposition the face a lot of obstacles right at the start, it appears that the centennial celebration is encountering some of its own problems, how important do you think that the centennial celebration of this event is to San Diego? MIKE KELLY: The importance the nice is to remind San Diego of a wonderful time in our past, that many people do not know about. They see these buildings and Balboa Park and say isn't it wonderful that we save them all, we do not save half of them but the one we have saved a unique and special place to visit, a center of culture and life of San Diego. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Of the things that the original exposition did not do was actually make San Diego that first industrial port of call to a lot of the strips coming through the port Panama Canal, what happened? MIKE KELLY: Luckily for us we did not end up like Long Beach in San Diego, we did not have the facilities. We were on the end of the rail and the stubble most, whereas Los Angeles had direct rail connections with the rest of the country in San Francisco did to see one that is why San Diego did not actually become Long Beach or San Francisco but what did San Diego become after this exposition? MIKE KELLY: We became a military town than those for sure, and we had shortly after the exposition close we held the Marine Corps Recruit Depot and we have a whole bay full of shipyards and the Navy has had a huge presence here in and was named after Joseph Pendleton who brought the fourth regiment of the US Marines to camp and Balboa Park during the entire first year the exposition. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: It's fascinating to learn this history, getting back to the Centennial plans, some of them are gelling and some of them are not. Do you expect there'll an update on the Centennial plans soon? MIKE KELLY: Hopefully someone in KPBS connected with the Centennial. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Oh, that it's intriguing. Would you expand on that a little? MIKE KELLY: I just heard about a little talk of that here the hallway. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Oh, I just work here. Let's go back to the question what is the biggest lesson of the success that we can learn about the success of 1915? MIKE KELLY: Got me there, the less it is that a small group of dedicated people can pull something off far bigger than imagination would ever allow, and I don't know if we could do that again, but they certainly did and we owe them a great deal of credit. MAUREEN CAVANAUGH: Mike Kelly will be talking about this book ìBalboa Park and the 1915 Exposition,î at the San Diego History Center tomorrow night starting at 6 PM, thank you so much for talking to us about this. MIKE KELLY: I enjoyed it Maureen, thank you.