Japanese Teahouse & Garden Among the many exhibits at the Panama-California Exposition were a Japanese teahouse and garden. They were created by Watanabe and Shibada, a firm based in San Francisco, and all the building components were made in Japan and shipped to San Diego. Though the original building appeared to have two roofs, it…
Tales of the 1915 Exposition Colonel David Charles Collier was the man in charge of the Panama-California Exposition, as director-general from 1909 until 1912, and as exposition president from 1912 until 1914. He was a lawyer and a developer of real estate who championed parks in the city and county of San Diego. The title…
Preserving the Past Featured on these pages are photos of Panama-California Exposition “lost buildings,” from the Panama-California Exposition Digital Archive. Prior to the formation of this committee in 1967, many structures from the 1915 Exposition were torn down. Although they were temporary buildings for the Exposition, their beauty inspired many people. As a result, the…
Lily Pond The Lily Pond in 1915 Several years before the Panama-California Exposition opened, Balboa Park was desert-like with hard soil and little to no vegetation. Sage, cactus, and chaparral dominated the scene. The groundbreaking ceremonies took place over four days, July 19-22, 1911, and between then and December 31, 1914, the entire Panama-California…
Botanical Building Surely, every visitor to Balboa Park’s Botanical Building will attest to the restorative beauty of the place — another legacy of the great 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition. Alfred D. Robinson, one of the founders of the San Diego Floral Association, as well as a gardener, horticulturalist, and writer, envisioned a lath house in Balboa…