The Natatorium site was dedicated on July 11, 1914. Charles Coburn played Father Neptune and Miss Gertrude Commer played Neptune's Daughter, with dancing and songs. In the finished show Neptune rose out of a large circular pool and enticed the Diving Girls into his realm, from which they did not reappear, at least where the audience could see them.
Todd called it 'a damp act' that was only moderately successful. It stood among the shows between the Grand Canyon and the '49 Camp, next to the Autodrome. That was a wooden bowl 80 feet across where cars ran at 86 miles an hour and motorcycles at 100 on the vertical wall, seen by nearly a quarter of a million people at ten cents each.
At a glance
- Natatorium site dedicated July 11, 1914.
- Neighboring Autodrome: an 80-foot plank pit; cars at 86 mph, motorcycles at 100 mph; nearly 250,000 paid admissions at 10 cents.
- Todd's walk runs Grand Canyon, Autodrome, Neptune's Daughters, '49 Camp.
Afterward
Demolished with the Zone in 1916.
Where it stood
Neptune's Daughters (the Diving Girls) stood at about 37.80297 N, 122.42890 W on today's map. The whole fairground over the city →
Sources
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), ch. XXIX, p. 153 (Natatorium dedication)
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), ch. LXVI, pp. 361-362
- Map of the Zone concessions, spring 1915 (reproduced in 'Let Me Get There', USC Scalar), Spring 1915 map of the Zone concessions