Golden Gate International Exposition

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Aerial photo of Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island.

Golden Gate International Exposition (1939 and 1940) was held at San Francisco, California to celebrate two newly-built bridges. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was dedicated in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge was dedicated in 1937. The exposition was opened initially from February 18, 1939 through October 29, 1939. It opened again from May 25, 1940 through September 29, 1940.

Main article: World's Fair

The Exposition was held on Treasure Island, a completely flat, artificial island attached to Yerba Buena Island, near where the Oakland span and the San Francisco span of the Bay Bridge join. Built by the federal government, Treasure Island was to be an airport for Pan American Airline's Pacific Rim service of flying boats, of which the China Clipper @ WP is an example. Due to WWII wartime needs, it was soon turned into a naval base, which was occupied by the US Navy from 1941 to 1997.

Unity of the Pacific nations is America's concern and responsibility. San Francisco stands at the doorway to the sea that roars upon the shores of all these nations; and so to the Golden Gate International Exposition I gladly entrust a solemn duty. May this, America's World's Fair on the Pacific in 1939, truly serve all nations.
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt

The San Francisco Downtown Association created the 49-Mile Scenic Drive @ WP to promote the exposition and "The City". The drive started at San Francisco City Hall and ended on Treasure Island after winding around the picturesque "City by the Bay."

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF) established a special passenger train, dubbed the Valley Flyer, specifically to shuttle passengers between Bakersfield and Oakland during the exposition.

In the Treasure Island amusement zone, known as the “Gayway," was the Sally Rand Nude Ranch, one of the highlights of the fair. It featured women wearing cowboy hats, gunbelts and boots, and little else. The fair’s Official Guide Book delicately described it as “Sally Rand Nude Ranch: A dude ranch a la 1939."

The Nude Ranch was just one of several “flesh" shows at the Treasure Island Fair. Others included Candid Camera, which featured live, nude, models, and Greenwich Village, described by the Official Guide Book as “Model artists’ colony and revue theatre."

The Gayway also featured the Mark Twain House, a replica of a newspaper office where the famed author worked, and Incubator Babies, Inc., with live infants in a modern hospital- on display at the fair.

Unabashed stag shows at Treasure Island did cause some controversy. However, one San Francisco neighborhood newspaper, the Polk Progress, wrote:

“One might gather from the snickering and naughty attitude toward the ‘flesh’ shows at the Exposition, that the success of the $50,000,000 enterprise hangs or fails upon the relative number of inches of epidermis displayed. Bringing stag shows out into the open in order that women may attend and feel devilish will pay good dividends, but the marvelous exhibitions of paintings and other displays will also attract a few."