Asked for the best and prettiest show on the Zone, Todd believed eighty-five visitors in a hundred would name the Tehuantepec Village. It was produced by G. M. Anderson, the film cowboy "Broncho Billy". Capt. A. W. Lewis, who had staged the "Boer War" spectacle at St. Louis, gathered its materials, making several trips into remote Mexico and bringing much of it out on pack mules through the lines of warring armies. The Exposition's architect E. J. Symmes designed the building. Its front was a riot of green-eyed Aztec gods and tropical paintings.
Inside, a fountain played in a patio ringed by artisans at work. There were opal polishers from Querétaro, weavers of serapes and Saltillo rugs, drawn-work makers from Guanajuato, feather-card and wax-figure makers, silver-filigree workers, onyx cutters and potters. Behind lay a garden with a model of Lake Xochimilco. A little theater gave generous concerts, and a restaurant served enchiladas and tamales. No one was pressed to buy. The ballyhoo was delivered by King Karlo, by Todd's account a 'Flat Head Indian from Oklahoma' in theatrical Mexican dress and a twenty-year veteran spieler, whose soft voice charmed the crowds in. For all its popularity the overhead was too heavy, and the village lost money.