Short version: take what you want, check it before you rely on it, and credit where the page tells you to. The longer version is below, and it is written to be read rather than to be impossible to read.
Last updated 19 September 2026. Contact: hello@288days.com.
What this is
288days.com is a free, independent history of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, with a 3D reconstruction of the fairground and a documentary film. It is made and paid for by one person, Keith Adler, under Hollow House Films. There is nothing for sale on it, no subscription, no account and no advertising, and there is no intention to add any.
Who owns what
This matters more here than on most sites, because most of what you are looking at is not mine.
| The material | Status | What you may do |
|---|---|---|
| The period photographs, plates and films | Public domain. Published before 1930 and out of copyright in the United States. | Anything. They were never mine to license. Each one names its source and holding institution, and a link back to the institution is the decent thing rather than a legal duty. |
| Quoted period text, including Todd's official history, the Official Guide, letters and speeches | Public domain. | Anything. |
| My writing: the essays, the place descriptions, the captions and the research notes | © 2026 Keith Adler. | Quote it, and quote it at length if it helps. Ask before republishing a page whole, and the answer will almost certainly be yes. |
| The film, 288 Days | © 2026 Keith Adler. Free to watch, now and permanently. | Watch it, link to it, show it to people, screen it in a room full of people if you like. Ask before cutting it up or re-uploading it, and say what you want it for. |
| The 3D reconstruction, the maps and the address lookup | © 2026 Keith Adler. Built on OpenStreetMap data, which is ODbL, and on period survey material. | Use it, point people at it. Ask before building something else out of the underlying data, mostly so I can tell you where it is wrong. |
| The press kit | Deliberately free. | Everything on the press kit page, text and stills alike, is free to reproduce with no permission needed and no clearing with anybody. |
If you are not sure which bucket something falls in, the page it is on says, and if it does not, ask me and you will get a straight answer the same day.
How far to trust it
This is research, done carefully, by one person, over a few months, and it will contain mistakes. Please treat it accordingly:
- The address lookup and the gazetteer are historical reconstruction, not a survey. The 1915 fairground is fitted to today's map from period plans, and the fit is good to within a few yards at best. It tells you what the fair put roughly where you are standing. It is not a boundary, not a title record, not a statement about any property, and it is no use at all for anything legal, structural or financial.
- Nothing here is professional advice of any kind, and in particular nothing here says anything about the ground under any building today.
- Every claim is sourced, chapter by chapter, on the sources page. If something matters to you, follow it back to where it came from rather than citing this site.
- If you find an error, tell me. That is genuinely the most useful thing anyone reading this can do: hello@288days.com. Corrections get made and, where they are substantial, noted.
The film
What is online now is an early cut, and the page says so before you press play. It will change. The narration is a temporary track read by me and the part is not yet cast. The finished film goes out free on 20 February 2027 and stays free. It is suitable for all audiences, and it deals honestly with parts of the fair that were not admirable, including the colour line in its hiring and its shows and the eugenics exhibit in the Palace of Education.
Using the site
There is almost nothing to prohibit here, so this is short. Do not attack the site, and do not hammer it hard enough to take it down for other people. If you want a lot of the material at once, write to me and I will just give it to you, which is easier for both of us than scraping it.
Links to other places
This site links out constantly, to the Internet Archive, Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress, the San Francisco Public Library and many others, because that is where the sources are. Those places are not mine and I am not responsible for them. Their terms and privacy policies are their own.
No warranty
The site and the film are provided as they are, free, with no warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any warranty of accuracy, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. To the fullest extent the law allows, I am not liable for any loss arising from using this site or relying on anything on it. Nothing here limits any liability that cannot lawfully be limited.
Privacy
Covered separately and in detail on the privacy page. The short version: no cookies, no analytics, no accounts, no mailing list, and nothing sold or shared with anybody.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the law of the State of California, and by the federal law of the United States where that applies. If some part of this page turns out to be unenforceable, the rest of it still stands.
Changes
If these terms change, the change is made here and the date at the top moves.