The PPIE Experience

The PPIE Experience. Something For Everyone. , "The coloring is so soft and wonderful. Blues and reds and greens and yellows and browns and grays are all blended into one perfect whole… It is fairyland." , Laura Ingalls Wilder, West from Home. , The Palace of Fine Arts is the only remainder of the most opulent world's fair ever held in the United States. Standing at this building in 1915 and looking east, you would have beheld a shining city at the edge of the San Francisco Bay. This spectacle of innovation and entertainment was the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. , The PPIE promised the theme of "human progress through human endeavor," and delivered it in spades. Fairgoers were treated to displays of technology from 31 countries, with plenty of "firsts" to boast about. The first transcontinental phone call connected Alexander Graham Bell in New York to his assistant in San Francisco, and General Electric pioneered the use of indirect, colored lighting to transform the atmosphere of the fair at night. , Eight thematic exhibition palaces, enormous courtyards, numerous foreign pavilions, and state buildings brought the best the world had to offer to San Francisco's doorstep. The PPIE's 288-day run was truly a festival of multiculturalism. , Visitors to the Joy Zone could ride through a scale model of Arizona's Grand Canyon, board the Aeroscope for a panoramic view of the fair, or marvel at Captain Sigsbee the Educated Horse. There were livestock and athletic exhibitions, airplane stunts, and automobile races. With fifty miles of avenues and aisles, the PPIE was so large that it was impossible to see it all before the fair closed. , (photo captions – all photos from Collection of Donna Ewald Huggins ) , . Ford Motor Company built an automobile assembly plant inside the Palace of Transportation. A new vehicle was produced every 10 minutes, and the entire inventory was sold out before the end of the fair. , . The exposition’s beautiful color palette, created by Jules Guerin, can be seen in the view from the Court of Palms towards the Palace of Horticulture, designed by Bakewell and Brown. , . The ukulele made its debut in the continental U.S. via the Hawaiian Pavilion, kicking off a nation-wide craze. , . Marin County's Arequipa Sanatorium received a gold medal for its display of beautiful pottery in the Palace of Education and Social Economy. At Arequipa, Dr. Philip King Brown combined art, medicine, and economic independence as part of his treatment program for female tuberculosis patients. , . Spotlights on the Tower of jewels, designed by Thomas Hastings, made colored Novagems sparkle, while offshore the Scintillator's aerial light show provided an exhilarating nighttime spectacle.