Varied Industries held the southeast corner of the main group, facing the Avenue of Palms to the south and the Avenue of Progress to the east. It was the first palace most visitors passed, since the Fillmore Street gate, not the formal Scott Street entrance, carried the biggest crowds. Its walls were divided into broad bays by pilasters carrying little travertine bears, each 'holding before him a shield, for modesty, and looking over the top of it at you in a most self-righteous and patronizing way' (Todd). The Guide says the consoles showed the grizzly, emblem of the Native Sons, embracing the state seal.
The main south portal was the building's glory, an adaptation of the portal of the Hospice of Santa Cruz at Toledo, reaching nearly to the gable. Faville kept the Spanish Renaissance frame but replaced the saints. Ralph Stackpole, a Californian who the Guide notes had himself worked as a miner, filled the tympanum with the industries and lined the niches with the repeated 'Man with the Pick.' Todd thought it 'such art as we rarely see in this country' and said it 'alone would have made the Exposition worth a long journey to enjoy.'
Inside, Varied Industries shared a classification with Manufactures and held what Todd called 'the Exposition's real Temple of Mercury': cutlery, jewelry, silver, clocks, pottery, glass, leather, toys, furniture, carpets, textiles and clothing. The southeast corner of the building sat below grade. McLaren banked it with acacias trained for two years into flat square heads, planted so close their tops 'looked like a floating lawn,' with ferns, cinerarias and cyclamen in the shade beneath.
It was such art as we rarely see in this country, and alone would have made the Exposition worth a long journey to enjoy.
Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. 2 (1921), ch. LI, on the south portal
At a glance
- Cost: $312,691 (Official Guide; Condensed Facts); $296,554 (Todd vol. 4).
- Its corners carried small green domes on octagonal bases with little Moorish tabernacles, a treatment used on all the palaces of the central group (Todd vol. 2, ch. LI).
- General contractor: Strehlow, Freese & Petersen (Todd vol. 2).
- Declared ready for exhibits May 22, 1914 (Todd vol. 2).
- The Court of Mines, between Varied Industries and Mines, led from the Court of Abundance east to the Avenue of Progress (Todd vol. 2, ch. LIII).
Afterward
Wrecked in 1916 (Todd vol. 5). The site is now residential Marina District.
Where it stood
Palace of Varied Industries stood at about 37.80316 N, 122.43759 W on today's map. The whole fairground over the city →
Sources
- Official Guide of the PPIE (1915), The Palace of Varied Industries
- Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. 2, chs. LI, LXI, LXII
- Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. 4, ch. XXIV (In the Temple of Trade)
- Condensed Facts concerning the PPIE (1915), Area and cost table