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Opening Day The Jeweled City The Zone Lincoln Beachey Audrey Munson

Appendix

The Jeweled City (con’t.)
There were no restrictions placed on the designs of these state and foreign buildings and the results ranged from the brilliantly avant-garde Netherlands Pavilion — which forecast the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz — to a lamentable facsimile of Athen’s Parthenon made from forty-eight foot tall logs of Douglas Fir. The state of Oregon was responsible for constructing this monument to poor taste.

Close by this monstrosity, just east of the 5 acre California Building, was a small yacht harbor. The breakwater which provided protection for this harbor held The Scintillator, an array of 48 searchlights manned by a cadre of Marines. Three nights a week The Scintillator provided a one hour light show capped off by a tremendous fireworks display which was witnessed by thousands of spectators within the grounds as well as thousands more ranged across the surrounding hills. The searchlights were fitted with various colored gelatin screens which could be changed to different colors during the course of the performance. A cadre of marines manipulated the lights which played across the low hanging banks of fog to create patterns which resembled the Aurora Borealis. When no fog was present, a locomotive located on a pier across from the breakwater generated clouds of steam which served to diffuse the light.Though considerably altered in form, both the breakwater and yacht harbor exist to this day.

Further on, several expansive barns were clustered about a stadium used for judging livestock. Northwest of this complex was a huge multipurpose stadium with a mile long trotting track. Within the borders of this track, were separate fields for polo, athletics, military drill and aviation. A grandstand capable of seating 10,000 sat along the “home stretch”.

Located southeast of the main core of palaces was the The Zone, a half mile long midway, packed with a dizzying array of souvenir shops, rides, shows, amusements, games, girlie shows, gambling houses, and eating establishments. The most lucrative concession was a five acre miniature of the Panama Canal Zone complete with ships passing through operable locks.

The facade of the building which housed this model was a show in its own right. Laura Ingalls Wilder, who would later write Little House on the Prairie, wrote a letter to her husband in the Ozarks describing the diorama above the entryway.

“The Panama Canal [building] is wonderful on the outside. It shows the canal with a warship on guard, and the wireless station which is actually sparking and sending out messages. The water flows into and out of the locks and the scenery is correct in detail, tropic of course, and the sky is someway managed by electricity so that it is twighlight and the stars come out. Then they gradually pale and the sky lightens for daybreak and becomes lighter until it is daylight.”(from West From Home, Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Roger Lea MacBride).

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