Yachting was granted an appropriate position upon the calendar, the races scheduled including yachts, sloops and motor boats upon San Francisco Bay and the ocean waters in the neighborhood of the Farallones. Perhaps the biggest event upon the programme is to be the International Regatta scheduled for August 1st to 31st, an event intended to bring into competition practically every type of racing craft afloat. This has brought attractive entries from both Eastern and Pacific clubs.
Special events were also arranged. A schooner race, with a course starting from a point on the bay off the Exposition and extending to the Farallone Islands, is one of them. Perhaps the most attractive of these events, however, will be the long-distance race for yachts from New York to San Francisco. The boats are to sail along the Atlantic seaboard, reaching San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Several entries for this contest have already been filed, and it is expected that by the time set for the start, a first class field will be ready to weigh anchor. Handsome cups, furnished by the Exposition for winners in the different nautical events, include many valuable trophies.
Boxing, the professional phase of which was recently abolished by an act of the California legislature, found an important place upon the Exposition programme. Amateur events staged at the Civic Auditorium excited great interest. By a special arrangement with the Amateur Athletic Union, the Exposition management obtained the national winners of Boston for the San Francisco tournament. Accordingly, the best of the country's amateur glove crop exhibited their wares to big galleries. In the matter of championships, California and the Pacific Northwest obtained the chief honors, several of the Eastern ring stars falling by the wayside in their work.
Not to be found wanting in the completeness of their scheme, the Exposition directors are still busy with plans which promise many events of unusual attractiveness for the Fall. It is hinted that the winner of the world's baseball series, waged between the National and American leagues, will be brought to the Coast for an exhibition series in October, to play against an all star team. Other phases of sport during the Exposition period include rowing, lawn tennis, handball and certain types of football, though disagreements between the two largest universities of the Coast have made the autumn sport an uncertain quantity.
XX.
The Joy Zone
A mile of amusement places, many of which are really educational—The
Panama Canal, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park and the native villages—
"The 101 Ranch"—"Toyland Grown Up"—Other notable features.
The Joy Zone, nearly a mile in length, is a broad avenue bordered with closely packed places of amusement. There are more than one hundred concessionaires, with two hundred and twenty buildings devoted to refreshment or pleasure, including a few in other places on the grounds. Here are all sorts of divertissements, from roller coasters to really great educational sights like the Panama Canal or the Grand Canyon.
By common consent the Panama Canal is the most noteworthy feature of the Zone. Indeed, it ought not to be on the Zone. It should have had a place in the Exposition proper, as one of its finest exhibits. The show is a working reproduction of the Panama Canal, on so large a scale that it covers five acres. The landscape of the Canal Zone is faithfully reproduced, with real water in the two oceans, the Gatun Lake, the Chagres River and the Canal. The visitor sees it from cars which travel slowly around the scene, and which are fitted with telephonic connections with a phonograph that explains the features of the Canal Zone as the appropriate points are passed. Next to seeing the Canal itself, a sight of this miniature is the most interesting and instructive view possible of the great engineering feat. In one way it is even better than a trip through the Canal. It gives the broad general view impossible from any point on the Isthmus itself.
In much the same class are the reproductions of the Grand Canyon and the Yelllowstone Park. The Grand Canyon has an added interest in the presence of Navajo and Hopi families living in reproductions of their desert homes. Representing other native races, there are the Samoan Village, the Maori Village, and the Tehuantepec Village. All these people are genuine and live in primitive style on the Zone, though, to tell the truth, they are quite likely to use college slang and know which fork to use first. Not on the Zone, but proper to be mentioned here, are the Blackfoot Indians brought to the Exposition from Glacier Park by the Great Northern Railroad. Eagle Calf is a real chief of the old days, and his band is a picturesque group.