Aviation, a branch of sport which claims a large place in the popular fancy, was not neglected by those who drew up the programme. Two world-famed aviators have performed before hundreds of thousands, though one of these, Lincoln Beachey, became a victim to the elements which he had so often defied. While giving an exhibition flight in a German Taube, Beachey fell to his death on March 14 when his monoplane crumpled at the start of a daring loop.
Nothing daunted by the untimely end of Beachey, a new luminary appeared in Arthur Smith, whose aerial maneuvers exceed in point of recklessness anything attempted by his predecessor. Smith thrills thousands in daily flights and skiey acrobatics, including crazy dips and loops, startling dashes to the earth and illuminated flights through the night air. (See p. 192.) Smith became in a day an attraction outshining, perhaps, any other single performer upon the huge Exposition programme.
Those who loved horse racing and grieved at the decline of the sport in California, were rejoiced at the announcement of some of the biggest harness and running events yet staged in this country. Two meetings were arranged for the Exposition schedule, a summer harness event, June 5th to 19th, and a fall running meeting, October 30th to November 13th. The Panama-Pacific is the first Exposition to make horse racing an outstanding feature of its activities. About $227,000 was set aside to be distributed in handsome purses and stakes for the events. A $20,000 trotting and a $20,000 pacing stake was put up for each meeting, with other sums ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. The four stakes of $20,000 each are the largest ever offered in any light-harness event, and insured entries of the highest cla.s.s.
The race track is situated near the athletic stadium, and commands an unsurpa.s.sed view of the San Francis...o...b..y, together with the Marin County heights and the entrance to the Golden Gate. The grandstand seats thirty-five thousand spectators. The course, under scientific preparation for several months, was put in fine shape. The length of the lap is one mile.
One of the biggest golf events ever staged in this country was successfully managed by the Exposition. Five weeks of sport on the links around the bay counties, including high-cla.s.s exhibitions by both men and women, were in the plans of the committee. Events included both professional and amateur contests, and seldom, if ever before, had a community of the size of San Francisco maintained so continuous an interest in the sport. Valuable prizes and trophies were offered for the different events of the programme. Handsome cups and medals were granted amateurs, while professionals were tendered purses of generous proportions.
Perhaps the banner event of the tournament was the amateur championship for men played on the course of the Ingleside Golf and Country Club.
Players of international reputation were entered in this event, and as a result, the play offered sensation after sensation. The tournament was won by Harry Davis, of the Presidio Golf Club, after a struggle in which he eliminated such stars as Chick Evans, H. Chandler Egan, Heinrich Schmidt, and Jack Neville. Davis met Schmidt in the finals of the event and won only after a dazzling exhibition of driving and putting such as has seldom been seen on a California course.
In addition to the men"s championships, the women were in the limelight for a week. Miss Edith Chesebrough won the finals of the first flight play over Mrs. H. T. Baker. Mixed foursomes, events for professionals, driving, putting, and approaching contests were all included upon the programme, with gratifying results.
Yachting was granted an appropriate position upon the calendar, the races scheduled including yachts, sloops and motor boats upon San Francis...o...b..y and the ocean waters in the neighborhood of the Farallones. Perhaps the biggest event upon the programme is to be the International Regatta scheduled for August 1st to 31st, an event intended to bring into compet.i.tion practically every type of racing craft afloat. This has brought attractive entries from both Eastern and Pacific clubs.
Special events were also arranged. A schooner race, with a course starting from a point on the bay off the Exposition and extending to the Farallone Islands, is one of them. Perhaps the most attractive of these events, however, will be the long-distance race for yachts from New York to San Francisco. The boats are to sail along the Atlantic seaboard, reaching San Francisco via the Panama Ca.n.a.l. Several entries for this contest have already been filed, and it is expected that by the time set for the start, a first cla.s.s field will be ready to weigh anchor.
Handsome cups, furnished by the Exposition for winners in the different nautical events, include many valuable trophies.
Boxing, the professional phase of which was recently abolished by an act of the California legislature, found an important place upon the Exposition programme. Amateur events staged at the Civic Auditorium excited great interest. By a special arrangement with the Amateur Athletic Union, the Exposition management obtained the national winners of Boston for the San Francisco tournament. Accordingly, the best of the country"s amateur glove crop exhibited their wares to big galleries. In the matter of championships, California and the Pacific Northwest obtained the chief honors, several of the Eastern ring stars falling by the wayside in their work.
Not to be found wanting in the completeness of their scheme, the Exposition directors are still busy with plans which promise many events of unusual attractiveness for the Fall. It is hinted that the winner of the world"s baseball series, waged between the National and American leagues, will be brought to the Coast for an exhibition series in October, to play against an all star team. Other phases of sport during the Exposition period include rowing, lawn tennis, handball and certain types of football, though disagreements between the two largest universities of the Coast have made the autumn sport an uncertain quant.i.ty.
XX.
The Joy Zone
A mile of amus.e.m.e.nt places, many of which are really educational--The Panama Ca.n.a.l, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park and the native villages-- "The 101 Ranch"--"Toyland Grown Up"--Other notable features.
The Joy Zone, nearly a mile in length, is a broad avenue bordered with closely packed places of amus.e.m.e.nt. There are more than one hundred concessionaires, with two hundred and twenty buildings devoted to refreshment or pleasure, including a few in other places on the grounds.
Here are all sorts of divertiss.e.m.e.nts, from roller coasters to really great educational sights like the Panama Ca.n.a.l or the Grand Canyon.
By common consent the Panama Ca.n.a.l is the most noteworthy feature of the Zone. Indeed, it ought not to be on the Zone. It should have had a place in the Exposition proper, as one of its finest exhibits. The show is a working reproduction of the Panama Ca.n.a.l, on so large a scale that it covers five acres. The landscape of the Ca.n.a.l Zone is faithfully reproduced, with real water in the two oceans, the Gatun Lake, the Chagres River and the Ca.n.a.l. The visitor sees it from cars which travel slowly around the scene, and which are fitted with telephonic connections with a phonograph that explains the features of the Ca.n.a.l Zone as the appropriate points are pa.s.sed. Next to seeing the Ca.n.a.l itself, a sight of this miniature is the most interesting and instructive view possible of the great engineering feat. In one way it is even better than a trip through the Ca.n.a.l. It gives the broad general view impossible from any point on the Isthmus itself.
In much the same cla.s.s are the reproductions of the Grand Canyon and the Yelllowstone Park. The Grand Canyon has an added interest in the presence of Navajo and Hopi families living in reproductions of their desert homes. Representing other native races, there are the Samoan Village, the Maori Village, and the Tehuantepec Village. All these people are genuine and live in primitive style on the Zone, though, to tell the truth, they are quite likely to use college slang and know which fork to use first. Not on the Zone, but proper to be mentioned here, are the Blackfoot Indians brought to the Exposition from Glacier Park by the Great Northern Railroad. Eagle Calf is a real chief of the old days, and his band is a picturesque group.
There is Toyland Grown Up, a product of the astonishing genius of Frederic Thompson, creator of Luna Park, covering nearly twelve acres and packed with Thompson"s whimsical conceptions of the figures of the Mother Goose Tales, Kate Greenway"s children, and soldiers and giants, and the familiar toys of the Noah"s Ark style-all on a gigantic scale.
j.a.pan Beautiful, a concession backed by the j.a.panese Government, has many interesting features, including the enormous gilded figure of Buddha over the entrance and a reproduction of Fujiyama in the background. Then there is an Antarctic show ent.i.tled "London to the South Pole;" the Streets of Cairo; the Submarines, with real water and marine animals; Creation, a vast dramatic scene from Genesis; the Battle of Gettysburg; the Evolution of the Dreadnaught; and many other spectacles and entertainments of many cla.s.ses, but all measuring up to a certain standard of excellence insisted upon by the Exposition. The Aeroscope, a huge steel arm that lifts a double decked cabin more than two hundred and fifty feet above the ground and then swings it around in a great circle over the Zone, is one of the thrillers.
The Joy Zone has suffered from the excellence of the Exposition to which it is the side-show. The Exposition itself is so wonderful a sight and contains so vast a number of remarkable and interesting things that mult.i.tudes have been content to stay with it, too much engrossed to find time for any but a few of the best things on the Zone. No better evidence could be found of the beauty, interest and value of this Exposition.
Appendix
(A) Sculptures and Mural Paintings
The following lists give the t.i.tles, locations and names of artists of the Exposition Sculptures and Mural Paintings. They do not include work exhibited in the Palace of Fine Arts, or in the state or foreign buildings, but only those which were designed for the adornment of the Exposition palaces, courts, and gardens.
The lists also index all matter and ill.u.s.trations describing or showing this "Exposition art." Figures in light-face type refer to pages in the text; those in black-face type, to ill.u.s.trations.
I. Sculptures.
South Gardens.--Two Mermaid Fountains, by Arthur Putnam (21, 84, 99); Fountain of Energy, by A. Stirling Calder (83, 47).
Palace of Horticulture--Figures at bases of spires, by Eugene Louis Boutier; Pairs of Caryatids, by John Bateman (21).
Festival Hall.--The Torch Bearer (on domes), Bacchus, The Listening Woman, Flora and Pan, Flora and Dreaming Girl, Figures on cartouche over entrance, all by Sherry E. Fry (26, 26, 32).
Tower of Jewels.--Cortez (east side of arch), by Charles Niehaus (46, 48); Pizarro (west side of arch), by Charles C. Rumsey; Priest, Soldier, Philosopher and Adventurer, by John Flanagan (46, 44); Armored Horseman (on terrace of tower), by F. M. L. Tonetti (46); Fountain of Youth, by Edith Woodman Burroughs (49, 84, 89, 53); Fountain of El Dorado, by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (49, 84, 89, 54).
Palace of Varied Industries.--Man with a Pick, Tympanum group of Varied Industries, New World Receiving Burdens of Old, Keystone figure, Power of Industry, all by Ralph Stackpole (33, 37, 132); Victory (on the gables of all the central palaces), by Louis Ulrich (28, 18).
Palaces of Manufactures and Liberal Arts.--Frieze over Portals, Craftsmen, Woman with Spindle, Man with Sledgehammer, all by Mahonri Young (33).
Palace of Education.--Typanum group, Education, by Gustav Gerlach (34, 132); Panel, Male Teacher, by Cesare Stea; Panel, Female Teacher, by C.
Peters (34).
West Facade of Palace Group.--Thought (on columns flanking half domes), by Ralph Stackpole; The Triumph of the Field, by Charles B. Harley; Abundance, by Charles R. Harley; Ex Libris (half dome of Education), by Albert Weinert; Physical Vigor (half dome of Food Products), by Earl c.u.mmings; Vestibule Fountains, by W. B. Faville (all on p. 34, 35).
North Facade of Palace Group.--The Conquistador and The Pirate, both by Allen Newman (35, 43, 44).
East Facade of Palace Group.--The Miner, by Albert Weinert (35).
Column of Progress.--The Adventurous Bowman, by Herman A, MacNeil (56, 61, 57); The Burden Bearers (frieze at base of group), by Herman A.
MacNeil (61); Frieze of Progress (frieze on pedestal), by Isidore Konti (61, 60).
Court of the Universe.--Nations of East and West (on arches), by A.
Stirling Calder, Leo Lentelli and Frederick G. R. Roth (52, 65, 63, 59).
Genii on Columns, by Leo Lentelli; Pegasus Spandrels, by Frederick G. B.
Roth; Medallions, by B. Bufano and A. Stirling Calder; The Stars, by A.
Stirling Calder; Signs of the Zodiac, by Herman A. MacNeil (all on p.
52).
Fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun, by A. A. Weinmann (52, 90, 63, 69); The Elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, by Robert Aitken (52, 64); Music and Poetry, by Paul Manship (52).
Court of the Ages.--Fountain of the Earth, by Robert Aitken (65, 66, 72, 91-5, 70, 73); Columns of Earth and Air, by Leo Lentelli (66, 67); Ages of Civilization (on Altar) and Thought (on side altars), by Chester Beach (66, 67, 70); Primitive Man, Primitive Woman, and The Hunter (on arcades), by Albert Weinert (66); Modern Time Listening to the Story of the Ages (in North Court), by Sherry E. Fry (67, 72).