Two small courts hid in the colonnaded wings east and west of the Tower of Jewels. Todd called them "delightful little enclosures somewhat easy to overlook." Each ended in an apse where a mural fountain poured over the lip of a broad semicircular basin. The eastern one was Edith Woodman Burroughs' Fountain of Youth.
Its central figure was a nude girl of twelve or thirteen, "with youth's quaint stiffness of form, and all its innocence and helplessness and hopefulness." Around the walls a frieze in an archaic manner showed the old and young on the perennial search for the fountain, which Todd found "quaint and curious and humorous and human and sad." The Official Guide summed up its mood in one word: "Naive."
It was one of several prominent works by women at the fair. The Guide's account of the Woman's Board lists it alongside Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's El Dorado in the opposite wing and Evelyn Longman's Fountain of Ceres.
No photograph of the Fountain of Youth has turned up yet in the public-domain archives this site draws on. If you know of one, or hold one, send it over and it will be credited here. Meanwhile the photographs page holds 410 pictures of the fair, more than the film uses.
Where it stood
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The Fountain of Youth stood at about 37.80220 N, 122.44054 W on today's map. The whole fairground over the city →