288 DAYSSan Francisco · 1915 ⌕
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Exhibit palace · The Walled City

Palace of Food Products

The walled city's northwest palace, where visitors watched a working flour mill and ate their way around the world a nickel or a dime at a time.

The Washington State exhibit in the Palace of Food Products
The Washington State exhibit in the Palace of Food ProductsFreshwater and Marine Image Bank, c. 1915–16, public domain

Food Products occupied the northwest corner of the main group, facing the Marina on the north and the Fine Arts Lagoon on the west. On the lagoon side it had the second of the great west half-domes, which Todd calls the Half Dome of Physical Vigor, with M. Earl Cummings' 'Youth with an Oak Wreath' repeated inside. Barry's handbook calls it the 'Dome of Plenty' and describes an elaborate fountain within.

Few palaces drew such steady crowds. The Guide says space was wanted by more than twice as many exhibitors as could be fitted in. A ninety-barrel mill turned out white flour while laboratories assayed wheat much as ores are assayed. The California Viticultural Association had a booth, and China's ornate booths held teas and delicacies. Visitors ate their way through it. At the Chinese Food and Tea Parlor plain chop suey was 25 cents. Coffee cost a dime in the Porto Rico and Guatemala sections. A breakfast-food company sold hot buttered scones with raspberry jam at a nickel apiece, and took in $40,000 (Todd).

On its east side the Court of Ceres, a colonnaded passage 171 ft wide, ran north from the Court of the Four Seasons between Food Products and Agriculture. It was one of the passages treated as courts, and it held Evelyn Longman's Fountain of Ceres.

At a glance

  • Cost: $342,555 (Official Guide); $342,551 (Condensed Facts); $326,590 (Todd vol. 4).
  • General contractor: Neil A. McLean (Todd vol. 2).
  • Declared ready for exhibits May 15, 1914 (Todd vol. 2).
  • Food Products, together with Agriculture, fell under the Department of Agriculture (Todd vol. 4; Condensed Facts).

Afterward

Wrecked in 1916 (Todd vol. 5); now Marina District.

Where it stood

Palace of Food Products stood at about 37.80394 N, 122.44648 W on today's map. The whole fairground over the city →

Sources