REPORT

California
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition
Commission

CALIFORNIA STATE BUILDING, SEATTLE EXPOSITION, 1909

Report of
GOVERNOR’S REPRESENTATIVES
for California at
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition

Sacramento, Cal., December 27, 1910.

To Hon. James N. Gillett,
Governor of California, and Ex-Officio Commissioner
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.

Dear Sir:—

As your Representatives, charged with the details of California’s representation at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, held at Seattle, Washington, from June 1st to October 15th, 1909, inclusive, we take pleasure in submitting to you the following report of our work.

It was right that California should aid and participate in a Western Exposition, and it was wise to make the appropriation for the purpose sufficient to insure a creditable representation of the State’s resources. Accordingly, on your recommendation, the Legislature of 1907, set apart from the General Fund the sum of $100,000, and authorized you, as Commissioner for California, through such Representatives as it might be your pleasure to appoint, to supervise the general expenditure of the appropriation in the erection of a suitable building on the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition grounds, and the collection and installation therein of such an exhibit as would do credit to the State, and exemplify in as striking and effective manner as possible the great variety and superior quality of California’s products.

REPRESENTATIVES.

In accordance with the authority thus conferred it was your pleasure to appoint the undersigned to represent you in this work. You acted promptly and gave your Representatives ample time to take advantage of the seasons to secure samples of everything necessary for a complete display of the State’s resources. To this one fact is due largely the greater completeness of the Seattle exhibit than any California had previously made. You also relieved your Representatives of possible embarrassment by allowing them to appoint their own assistants and fix their compensation and term of service. In the exercise of this authority preference was given to those best qualified to perform the work required, and the term of employment depended on efficiency and good behavior. No help was hired that was not absolutely necessary, and no one was kept on the pay-roll a moment longer than his or her services were required. In short, it was our determined purpose from the start to try and secure maximum results at a minimum cost in every department of the work, to the end that the final outcome might be an improvement on any previous effort made by California of a similar character.

We considered this to be necessary, not only in deference to our own reputation, but more particularly for the credit and benefit of the State. You can understand if the display made at Seattle had been less complete or in any way less attractive than the one made at Portland, for instance, the impression created would be that those in charge were becoming careless, or that California was retrograding, a condition that would probably have resulted in as much harm as good, and largely or entirely neutralized the object of the Legislature in making the appropriation.

IMPROVEMENT IMPERATIVE.

We felt that we must improve on previous showings made by the State at other Expositions, or resign and ask that the responsibility be placed in other hands, or that the money be allowed to remain in the State Treasury. With a larger appropriation, corresponding with the larger expenditures in freight and numerous other items at Seattle as compared to Portland, the effort for an improved display would not have been difficult; but with the appropriation practically the same, considering the salvage benefit realized for Portland from California’s exhibit the previous year at St. Louis, the planning, the economizing, the denials and the extra personal labor imposed in order to accomplish the desired result can never be fully appreciated, except by those who had immediate charge of the work. Those efforts were made the more difficult by reason of California’s reputation for open handed hospitality, and the ever present consciousness that nothing must be done or left undone that might tend to impair that reputation. You can understand it is no easy task to maintain a show of generous hospitality all day, and then set up at night to figure out how you can do the same thing to-morrow without unduly impairing a limited revenue.

BUILDING AND EXHIBITS SUPERIOR.

But we did it. We built the best and second largest State Building ever erected at a World’s Fair; we collected and installed the most complete and most attractive exhibit of California’s resources that the State ever made; we maintained stereoptican lectures, gave out verbal information to all inquirers, and distributed attractive literature; we gave frequent receptions and dispensed true California hospitality; we filled the measure of our aim; we did what we believe the State expected us to do, and it is a proud moment now the work is ended and we are able to record the fact that we did it without exceeding the appropriation.

THE CALIFORNIA BUILDING.

The California building was of the Spanish renaissance style of architecture. The broad steps that led up to the five large arches which opened on to the wide portico or colonnade were eighty feet long, and through any of the five broad doors that fronted the arches visitors entered the main exhibition hall. This hall was one hundred and forty feet square with gallery on all four sides twenty-one feet high and thirty feet wide. Four flights of easy stairs, one at either corner, led to the spacious gallery. Light was diffused from side windows under the gallery and in the gallery high enough from the floor so as not to interfere with the wall for exhibit purposes, and from an iron-framed skylight sixty-four feet square. On either side of the main building and in line with the front there were wings thirty-two feet wide and thirty-five feet long. This gave a total frontage to the building of two hundred and ten feet, or a little more than two-thirds of an average city block. The wings were so arranged as to provide a lecture hall, offices, parlor, reception room, buffet, and living rooms for the Representatives and some of the employees. The structure as a whole presented an imposing appearance and was ideal for the purpose intended. It was designed and built by the State Engineering Department, with an occasional inspection by one of the Representatives. Builders figured on the plans and variously estimated the cost at from $50,000 to $56,000. We had asked for a building to cost not exceeding one-third of the appropriation. For a time we feared the dimensions would have to be reduced, but State Engineer Ellery, after figuring carefully on the job, expressed the opinion that he could erect the structure as planned for an amount pretty close to our figures. He was finally requested to go ahead with the work. He put one of his trusted superintendents in charge, hired his help by the day, and when completed as nearly as desired for exposition purposes, it was found to have cost, including preparation of grounds and finishing of lecture room, just $40,333.84, and it was better finished outside and more substantially constructed than Exposition buildings usually are.

NOW A MUSEUM.

As you are aware it has been deeded to the Washington University, on whose grounds the Exposition was held, and, barring accidents, will remain for many years as the University Museum building.

GENERAL VIEW, CALIFORNIA EXHIBIT, SEATTLE, 1909
Center Piece or Fruit Palace

THE GENERAL DISPLAY.

The installation would be tedious to describe, and we will not attempt it further than to say that harmony in color and arrangement was maintained throughout the building, all balancing from an imposing center-piece, or Product Palace, which was covered entirely with natural products of the State, including dried fruits, seeds, cereals, raisins, nuts, etc., so artistically arranged as to give the whole a very attractive appearance. This center-piece or palace was admitted to be not only the most beautiful feature of the California Building, but the most original, elaborate and artistic feature of the entire Exposition. The editor of Illustrated Northwest Farm and Home visited the California Building during the early part of the Fair, and returning home gave expression to his impressions through the columns of his paper in these words:

These were some of the fruit features designed to set off the general display and emphasize the products that composed them. But these were only incidental to the strong and imposing exhibit of all of California’s material products. There was a generous display of processed fruits, including all varieties known to the State. The dried fruit department was strong and attractive, embracing three separate features, one of miscellaneous dried fruits, one of raisins and one of prunes. There were separate stands or features of wines, olive oil, pickled olives, mineral water, canned fruit, preserved fruit, vegetables, flowers, oranges, nuts, honey, beans, cereals, seeds, sugar, silk, wool, ostrich feathers, fibers, canned milk, canned fish, etc., etc., besides many suitable show cases containing samples of other products more delicate and less in quantity. There was a strong show of incubators and an attractive feature of borax. Models were shown, and in operation where practicable, of such articles or machinery as could not be accommodated otherwise, as for instance the working model of a complete gold dredge, manufactured especially for this exhibit by the Risdon Iron Works of San Francisco.

MINING EXHIBIT.

The Mining Department of the display on the main floor of the California Building was attractively installed and as complete as the State has ever made, being strong in the minerals in which we are strong, but embracing in all forty-four separate commercial varieties, including a strong showing of mineral oils and structural materials. A beautiful illuminated case of gold specimens and free gold ores from Siskiyou County, and an equally beautiful illuminated case of rough and cut gems from San Diego County, including gem jewelry, constituted very attractive features of the mineral department. The onyx and onyx ware from San Diego made a fine showing, as did also the large display of slate in all forms of utility from El Dorado.

FORESTRY.

The Forestry Department included all the commercial woods of the State and many that have a prospective value for cabinet purposes. The variety displayed in this feature was so great, the installation so attractive, and the quality of the raw and manufactured samples so superior, that the Jury readily awarded to it a Grand Prize, the highest recognition possible, and this in a State where forestry is a leading industry, and by a Jury composed largely of Washingtonians. This was a victory to be proud of. All the available space on the walls of the main exhibition hall was covered with enlarged views of California scenes and industries.

THE GALLERY.

SECTION OF ART GALLERY, CALIFORNIA EXHIBIT, SEATTLE, 1909

On the upper floor, one gallery (the front) was reserved for display pictures, a hotel information bureau and receptions, one for an exhibit of manufacturers’ samples, one for Art, and one for Education.

THE MANUFACTURERS’ SAMPLES,

while largely a new departure, constituted a very interesting and instructive feature. Even many Californians were surprised to learn that all of the articles found there were made in this State. Leather and leather goods, silk and silk fabrics and nautical instruments in this department, each were awarded the highest prize it was possible to obtain.

FINE ARTS.

The Art Display collected largely by Miss Evelyn Almond Withrow of San Francisco, as a labor of love, her services being gratuitous, as was her time in superintending the installation of the exhibit later, was freely admitted by those informed on such things to be the best and most complete representation of California art and handicraft ever brought together on any previous occasion either at home or abroad. It comprised nearly three hundred pictures, all the best work of the best artists in the State, besides busts of statuary, samples of modeling and eight large and specially designed show cases filled with beautiful samples of all classes of handiwork known to art.

EDUCATION.

Our Educational Display was the best and most complete ever made, and was very much the best exhibit of the kind at the Seattle Exposition. It was collected and superintended by Mr. Robert Furlong of San Rafael, an expert in this line of work, and embraced a representative showing of every department of California’s educational system from the kindergarten to the university, not omitting the libraries and private educational institutions. There could be only one criticism to this department and that was its crowded condition, as there was too much material for the space that could be allowed for it. In an exhibit of products, quantity can be reduced without material detriment, but if one sample of an educational exhibit is left out, the work perhaps of some fond son or daughter whose parents may come looking for