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Understanding 9/11tv San Diegos Balboa Park CSPAN January 8, 2017 11:48pm-12:02am EST
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very well. is that ok for you? [applause] craig symonds: good, ok. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter for information on her schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. >> c-span is in san diego learning more about the city's rich history. , a world's fair celebrates the opening of the panama canal. we learn more about the park history and how it helped grow the city of san diego.
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>> we're in the jewel of san diego. this is one of the highlights of our city, set up in 1868, and it was set aside to be a respite from the downtown, all the havoc that goes on in the city. elbow park is a cultural institution, the cultural mecca of our region. san diego invites the world, it's a showcase of the events leading up to the development of and the aftermath of the 1916 exposition here in san diego. one of the reasons the exposition was created and how balboa park came to be is a result of the panama canal which opened in 1915. san diego had a reputation of being sort of a wild west town. it had a small population.
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there were 30,000 people who lived here. and there was an awful lot of vice here. san diego wanted to change its reputation. it wanted to recognize the fact it was an up-and-coming city, and that was the dream of some of the founding fathers and mothers here. that it could become a metropolis it staged appropriately and it had industry brought to it. one of the people responsible for our exposition here in san diego is aubrey davidson. aubrey davidson was the president of the chamber of commerce in 1908. it was announced that the united states was taking over the panama canal project and it would be completed in 1915. he saw that as an opportunity for san diego to come forward and introduce itself to the world. and so, there was the exposition
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and they announce that to the folks in town. for a few years, they did the financing to build the exposition and it opened on december 31, 1914 at midnight. there was a telegraph sent by woodrow wilson in washington, d.c. to turn on all of the lights, and that happened at midnight. all of the people were coming through and about 40,000 people came to the opening night ceremonies. and it's been a highlight of balboa park ever since. this used to be the commerce and industry building and we had in it, adding machines and that kind of production for business. one of the highest production pieces that we have here in our exhibit is the registry book of all of the different people who came here. it was so successful, it
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continued into 1916. and when you came across the bridge into the california building, there was this book waiting for you to sign in. the collected signatures. i don't know if we know exactly how many there are, but 3.8 came to thele exposition in 1915 and 16. and the majority of those folks names are listed in the book. people also went across the street from us to the county building where it there were different examples of agriculture dropped the county. and one other very important elements. we tried to teach people about different cultures as much as possible. it was a time when the world was opening up. we wanted to make sure that people had a chance to learn about the culture existing here and the united states was not that far out of the union wars.the indian wars.
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it was an opportunity to showcase people in the united states. we invited the hopi, the navajo, others to come to our exhibit ground. we built a place for them to build up structures to become home places and they lived on the site for the duration of the exposition. people could walk and amongst them and learn from them directly what their cultural experiences were like. to give you a sense of what it was like to be here in 1915, fortunately we do have the layout -- some parts of the park are as they were in 1915. there were four main structures supposed to stay here in 1915. we will take a look at those. we will wander around the park. we are standing on the cabrillo bridge. this is the main entrance to the california exposition. this was a grand entrance.
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you are coming over a very deep ravine and you are going to enter into this fantasy world. that is what expositions were trying to create, and atmosphere you had never seen before. it was housed in something quite foreign to most people. so, people came across the bridge after going through their missions on the other side. and they wander up this grand esplanade, you might say, and approach the first building. the first building that we have, that you see here in the exposition grounds is the former park, ground building. here you see it as it was first built. irving gill was one of the leading architects in san diego at the time. he brought this modernism to san diego.
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however, he then worked on other projects. and bertrand goodhue was chosen as the chief architect of the exposition grounds. his architectural style is very different. and as you take a look at the dome, they are going to be using structures found in other parts of the world as inspiration for the buildings here. he is adopting a spanish revival or spanish colonial style, which was very different from what people had seen in other parts of the world. and for the california building, it was designed to house the -- it shows different -- how's the state of california. it showcases different cultures run the world. it was greeted by bertrand hughes.
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he wanted to create that mystical city. and the largest building in those ancient walled cities is usually a church. the tower or the dome building -- modeled after a real structure in toledo, spain. this is silver mining community. and so, all of the decoration on the outside is very intricate. very much like you would find. any kind of jewelry or any kind of, you know, plates made out of silver. as people entered into the exposition grounds, one of the important parts of why this expo was created was to celebrate the fact that san diego was the first city you would come to in the united states after going through the panama canal. so the imagery used on the outside, the entrance into the park was this image of two people, one representing pacifica, the other representing atlantica, and they are the ocean.
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and in the center, you see them -- you seen the medallion there and it is a ship going through the panama canal. the imagery immediately is telling people what this exposition was built for and that's the opening of the panama canal. this is today as it was in the past one of the main entertainment venues in ludlow park. -- in balboa park. it was a gift. a sugar baron from san francisco moved here to live permanently in san diego. he saw that the park needed to have a main entertainment venue and the organ he and his brother had purchased for a different park that they owned a little further ease stop us here, they had decided to give it to the exposition instead. we're fortunate we have it. it is an outdoor pipe organ. at the time it was built, it was the largest outdoor pipe organ
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in the world. for a while we lost that title ii of place in the czech republic, but just recently we have again put in more pipe, so it is once again the largest pipe organ in the world. this is the main street that works are the park in one of the most popular places that people like to come and visit is the botanical building behind me right now. the structure was the largest glass structure of its kind in the world at the time it was built and it was built to house primarily plants from all over the world. if you look at the exposition grounds, you will see a lot of grass. many of the landscape planners believed, as we do today, the environment does not support having a lot of grass grown here. the architect of our exposition, bertrand goodhue, he comes from back east and he was going to
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change his architectural style to make people feel comfortable coming from the east. he thought that they needed to have something more familiar to them. he had all of the areas between buildings planted in grass and the foliage that you see was adding in as well. it was familiar to people coming from the east, but new and the -- fantastical for people coming from other parts of the world. >> this weekend, we're featuring the history of san diego, california. together with our charter spectrum and cox communications partners to showcase the history of san diego, california. two learn more about the cities on our current tour, visit c-span.org/citiestour.
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you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. videoedtudentcam documentary competition is underway in students across the country are busy at work and sharing their experience with us through twitter. too late to enter. deadline is january 20, 20 17. in your documentary, tell us what is most urgent issue for the new president and congress to address in 2017. our competition is open to all middle school and high school withnts grades six to 12, 100 thousand dollars awarded in cash prizes. grand prize of $5,000 will go to the student or team with the best overall entry and the remaining cash money will be awarded and shared between 150 students and 53 teachers. and contestormation
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rules, go to our website, studentcam.org. >> of next, constitutional law talkssor garrett epps about the passage of the 22nd amendment of the u.s. constitution, limiting the number of terms president conserve. he explains what propelled the amendment's adoption and some of the unintended consequences of ratification. this is an hour-long event. >> professor garrett epps joined the university of baltimore in 2008. he is a contributing editor to the atlantic online, and also the contributing editor of the american file. his latest book was published by
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