Elaborate Pyrotechnics Display at the 1915 World’s Fair
by Laurie Thompson
101 years ago, the Panama Pacific International Exposition created a 3-day Independence Day celebration to top all others.
The July 1, 1915 Marin Journal reported:
The chief event will be the official patriotic ceremonies on July 5th when Hon William Jennings Bryan will be the orator of the day. Mr. Bryan will speak on world peace.
Art Smith, the famous loop-the-loop and up-side-down aviator, in his brilliantly illuminated aeroplane, will loop every night and set off colored fireworks high in the heavens, while giant shafts of light from the huge battery of searchlights on San Francisco harbor play upon the rushing aeroplane. W. D’A. Ryan, the wizard who conceived the lighting of the Panama Canal locks, and chief of illumination at the Exposition, will display some entirely new features in his spectacular illumination scheme, throwing the prismatic colors high in the heavens against vast clouds of liberated smoke and producing strange figures in the sky. Lightning will be imitated with terrific intensity.
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
