Tower of Jewels

This stereograph offers a view of the Tower of Jewels as seen from Festival Hall at the Panama Pacific International Exposition . Held in 1915, the exposition was one of the largest and most spectacular of all international exhibitions. It marked the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, and celebrated the development of the Pacific Coast as a center of international commerce. In 1906, just two years after the city had begun planning for the fair, San Francisco was devastated by an earthquake, which was followed by a great fire that reduced most of the city to ashes (Mattie 132). The fair was ideally suited to prove to the world that San Francisco had recovered from this disaster (Findling 219)