The fair celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and this concession let visitors ride through it in twenty-three minutes. On almost five acres just east of the Palace of Machinery, the Chicago utility-equipment maker L. E. Meyers built a working model of the waterway with an ocean at each end. Tiny ships passed through the locks at a pace scaled to real transit times. Electric 'mules' towed them, trains ran and lighthouses flashed. The model covered about 1,000 square miles of the Isthmus. A panorama painted on the surrounding walls carried the view out another 4,000 square miles, and an awning hung at eye level hid the real sky and kept the illusion intact.
Spectators sat in a moving platform 1,440 feet long, divided into 144 jointed cars with two tiers of seats, which crept around the model carrying up to 1,200 people at a time. Each seat had a telephone receiver. In a back room, 45 phonographs plus 15 spares played recorded lectures timed to the numbered landmarks passing by. The system was worked out in Thomas Edison's laboratory and was believed to be new. The concession needed 85 miles of copper wire and 104 motors.
It was one of the Zone's great successes. It took in more than $338,000 at a steady fifty cents a ticket and outlasted many flashier neighbors. The jury of Liberal Arts reviewed it as an educational exhibit and gave it a Grand Prize. On the building hung a testimonial from the Canal's own Washington office saying the model would teach more in half an hour than several days on the real canal. The Exposition's architects did require one change: the front had to be redone in the fair's ivory 'travertine' finish instead of plain white.
As the spectators sat in comfortable chairs and passed the various points of interest, they held telephone receivers to their ears, and heard lectures from phonograph records which were switched on and off to correspond with the various sections of the journey.
Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), p. 150
At a glance
- Almost five acres; two million feet of lumber and 217 tons of cement; about $250,000; 225 men worked seven months, and 60 women spent five months making trees, shrubs and grass.
- Moving platform: 1,440 feet, 144 cars, 1,200 riders, 23-minute circuit.
- Lecture delivered by 45 phonographs (plus 15 spares) through telephone receivers; each record lasted about six weeks.
- Gross receipts $338,227.55, the seventh-largest of all 455 concessions.
- Awarded a Grand Prize as an exhibit in Liberal Arts.
Afterward
Demolished with the Zone in 1916; the site is Marina District housing near Fillmore Street.
Sources
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), ch. XXVIII, pp. 150-151
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), ch. XXIX, p. 155 (travertine front)
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. II (1921), ch. LXIV, p. 352 (receipts, 50-cent price)
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. V (1921), ch. XXIV, p. 162 (receipts table)
- Official Guide of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915), p. 69
- Map of the Zone concessions, spring 1915 (reproduced in 'Let Me Get There', USC Scalar), Spring 1915 map of the Zone concessions