Balboa Park, 1909-1911 the Rise and Fall of the Olmsted Plan

The Journal of San Diego History SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY Winter 1982, Volume 28, Number 1 Edited by Thomas L. Scharf Balboa Park, 1909-1911 The Rise and Fall of the Olmsted Plan By Gregory Montes Copley Award, San Diego History Center 1981 Institute of History Images from this article BETWEEN 1868, the founding year of San Diego's City Park, now Balboa Park, and 1909, public open space protagonists and antagonists fought frequently over how to use the 1,400 acre tract. But as of 1909 it still was not clear which force would prevail in the long run. Due to San Diego's small population (39,000) and economy, caused mainly by its remote location in the southwesternmost United States, City Park represented somewhat of a draw by 1909. On the one hand, the relatively few, albeit vigorous, well-placed park supporters had managed to achieve since 1868 only about 100 acres of spotty, although pleasing landscaping, mainly in the southwest, northwest and southeast corners of City Park and construction of several long, winding boulevards throughout the tract.1 On the other hand, the park poachers had succeeded in permanently gaining only five acres for a non-park use, San Diego (or Russ) High School at the south side of City Park. Until 1909, public park protectors and town developers had not reached a consensus on how to proceed with City Park. Then came forward an idea which seemed to have something for both sides, more or less. The transformation of that proposal to reality brought divergent San Diegans together on some points and asunder on others. The project led, then and now, to some of the greatest assets and conflicts of Balboa Park and San Diego. An Optimistic Proposal On July 9, 1909, at a meeting of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, its President, banker G. Aubrey Davidson, proposed to his fellow directors that San Diego celebrate the official opening of the Panama Canal, scheduled for January 1, 1915, by holding an international exposition in their City Park.2 Davidson noted that a world's fair could help boost San Diego's population and economy, both lagging since the Panic of 1893, and also help finance extensive landscaping of City Park, which so far seemed beyond the town's capacity. The Chamber President declared that after the exposition, most of its buildings could be demolished while the walkways, gardens and surrounding landscaping would remain to adorn the park.3 The Chamber members soon saw Davidson's point that with the Panama Canal opening, completion of the San Diego and Arizona Railway begun in 1907, and contemplated port development in San Diego's large natural harbor, their city, the first American port north of Panama, could become a commercial hub for shipping goods to and from much of the United States' developing Southwest.4 The businessmen realized that if you have a good product, service or situation, you can gain the best profit from it only with good advertising. An exposition could provide that advertisement and also bring more settlers to San Diego and the area to be served by its port -- Southern California and the Southwest. Some Chamber members asked how a city of 39,000 people could pull off a successful international fair. Canadian-born Davidson acknowledged the difficulty but pointed to San Diego's outstanding climate and scenery and again to the impending developments of canal, railway and harbor.5 Through July and August, 1909, the Chamber of Commerce coalesced around Davidson's proposal and gained more adherents throughout San Diego's business community. On September 4, 1909, twenty-one men, all prominent members of San Diego's Establishment, signed and filed Articles of Incorporation to establish the "Panama-California Exposition Company," with the purpose of operating a world's fair in 1915.6 Five days later the company's Board of Directors was elected.7 The Board Chairman was Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., owner of San Diego's Hotel Grant and son of the eighteenth President of the United States. The four Vice-Presidents of the board included G. Aubrey Davidson and John D. Spreckels, then San Diego's wealthiest, most powerful individual.8 The Exposition Directors chose for Director-General of the fair, Colonel D.C. (Charlie) Collier, Davidson's close ally in the Chamber of Commerce, a successful realtor and always energetic 'Booster' of the San Diego economy.9 David and Goliath The Panama-California directors and staff were not sure how much their 1915 hoopla would cost but they figured that $1 million would make a good start. As one of the directors, banker Julius Wangenheim, later said, $1 million was, "the largest amount that our minds could grasp at that time and one that was almost synonymous with infinity."10 Thus on November 24, 1909, the Exposition issued $1 million in stock to pay for construction of the fair.11 The stock campaign took off quickly at first and $300,000 were raised in subscription pledges in the first two weeks.12 One writer observed: "The exposition idea was like fire in wild grass, it took the whole city by storm and devoured every particle and vestige of local jealousy, envy and opposition in the community.13 But like most California brush-fires, San Diego's soon encountered an obstacle and had to alter its course. As early as January, 1904, San Francisco business leaders had considered holding a "World's Exposition" in 1915 to celebrate the projected Panama Canal inauguration.14 The idea receded after the disastrous San Francisco earthquake of April, 1906. But in late 1909, when word spread about San Diego's exposition plans, San Francisco realized that it had better move quickly or else lose the West Coast glory and profits attending the canal opening, to a town not quite one-tenth its size. On December 7, San Francisco's business and civic leaders met and resolved to hold the "Panama Pacific International Exposition" at their city in 1915.15 Facing a formidable challenge from the Bay Area, little San Diego modified its exposition strategy in two ways. First was to aim for a smaller, regional, Pacific Southwest exhibition which would complement rather than compete with the mammoth, international exposition envisaged by San Francisco.16 Secondly San Diego forged ahead with the Panama California preparation, stronger and more united than ever.17 On March 15, 1910, less than four months after the campaign began, stock subscription pledges for San Diego's exposition reached the goal of $1 million.18 In late February, John D. Spreckels gave the campaign its biggest single boost with a pledge to purchase $100,000 of stock.19 On August 9, 1910, San Diego voters approved by a 7 to 1 landslide, issuance of $1 million in municipal bonds for Balboa Park landscaping outside the exposition grounds.20 In 1909-10, San Diegans raised, through bond issues and stock subscriptions, almost $5 million, or "$50 for every man, woman and child," to fund the Panama-California Exposition and indirectly related improvements such as 450 miles of County roads, new City water and sewer systems and even a $700,000 bailout to help strapped U.S. Grant, Jr., Exposition President, to finish his $1.5 million downtown hotel.21 In 1912, San Diego began to build several public docks along the waterfront which were to cost $6 million.22 Seeking Congressional assistance for the exposition in May, 1911, Colonel Collier said that these bond issues and subscription campaigns showed how much San Diego was willing to help herself. In Collier's humble opinion, San Diego was, "the pluckiest, nerviest and gamest city in the United States of America and probably the world."23 Why Not the Best? On May 25, 1910, the Exposition directorate voted provisionally to build the fair at the southwest corner of City Park .24 The board President appointed a seven-man Buildings and Grounds Committee to work out details of planning and building the exposition .25 The committee's first chairman was George W. Marston, department store owner, generous philanthropist, City Park benefactor and city planning advocate. The plain name, "City Park," was replaced by "Balboa Park" on October 27, 1910.26 The renaming, after Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa who crossed Panama and discovered the Pacific Ocean on September 29, 1513, gave the park closer association with the projected Panama-California Exposition. The Buildings and Grounds Committee searched in September and early October, 1910 for nationally known people to design and construct the Panama-California Exposition.27 In early twentieth century San Diego, the search for "the best talent that money could possibly hire," as Colonel Collier put it, was not just to obtain high quality results but also to better advertise and attract people to the event at hand.28 The committee's first choice for exposition designer was Daniel Burnham, famous architect and planner of the pinnacle of American expositions up to that time -- the huge, Neo-Classical "World's Columbian Exposition" of 1893 at Chicago.29 But Burnham, a co-founder of the national "City Beautiful Movement," of which parks and expositions were an important part, was too busy to take the San Diego job. The Buildings and Grounds Committee moved on to its second choice and hired, at a flat fee of $15,000, Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts, then the most prominent American firm specializing in landscape architecture.30 Olmsted Brothers was to design the general layout and landscaping plan of the Panama-California Exposition. The principals of Olmsted Brothers, John C.

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