The Palms go to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition

The California Nursery Company in Niles supplied many palm trees for the Panama Pacific International Exposition. In the 1915 catalog, there is a photo of Canary Island palms on a railcar. It says "Trainload of large Phoenix canariensis. Were planted on Palm Avenue at 1915 Exposition."

"In the fall of the year most of large trees for the Avenue of Palms were boxed. This called for about 350 Canary Island date palms and California fan palms, which were set alternately. Most of them were shipped from Niles, on the east side of the Bay, in the spring and summer of 1914." (Page 310, of The Story of the Exposition: Being the Official History of the International Celebration Held at San Francisco in 1915 to Commemorate the Discovery of the Pacific Ocean and the Construction of the Panama Canal, Volume 1.  (This is a Google books scan. See other scans below.)

On the next page are two photos of the trees being moved:

"Living palms in carload lots"
SFPL also has this image.

"Gardening with a derrick"
SFPL also has this image.

Additional Images from the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL)

• Transporting Palms in boxes on Avenue of Palms
• Avenue of Palms
• Avenue of Palms. Tower of Jewels left, Palace of Horticulture right
• Avenue of Palms, Festival Hall in distance
• Many more

Portion of map showing where the Avenue of the Palms is located.
Map is from SanFranciscoMemories.com.

"Double rows of palms border either side of the Avenue,
with ferns, and blossoming nasturtiums and geraniums
planted directly in the interstices of the roughened trunks"
The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition, p. 34

After the Exposition

John McLaren pled for the preservation of the Avenue of Palms before the exposition closed. He said the palms were from Palmdale which is across from the Mission San José, here in Fremont (!). Palmdale is now and was then far from a rail line. How can that be when so many signs are that the palms were from the California Nursery - shipping records, references to Niles, the means to ship them...

The nursery had the Western Pacific rail line running through the center of the nursery. There are receipts from the nursery for palms. The CHS displayed the landscape plan for the PPIE and I located and counted all of the palms. (need to find that again.)

There are some indications that Donald McLaren was involved more in certain PPIE landscape aspects and was not given the credit that his father was given. (find this) Perhaps this is another instance where the father got the credit, but did not know the facts.

October 15, 1915, Berkeley Gazette

In the Chronicle, Oct 22, 1915, a letter mentions McLaren's plea in the Oct 19th issue. Find this.

The Palms meet with no Demand

..."for the reason of their great size and the cost of taking them out and transporting them. They will probably be cut down." Morning Union 11 May 1916.

And because, of course you can, you can look up and see that the rainfall in April 1916 - November 1917 was very small. And if the palms were still there in May with all the pipes removed, what chance will there be for them to survive?

McLaren was involved in several landscaping projects after the PPIE, the San Mateo Park neighborhood and the Santa Veneta project in Marin County. 

The Palms were still there in November of 1916

In the SF Call, "Mr. de Young then presented his plan of saving the Avenue of Palms and making it the connecting link of the city's boulevard system."

What happened next? See here for more articles.

References

• Nursery Order for Avenue of Palms, California Garden & Landscape History Society
• The Hathi Trust has all five volumes of The story of the exposition : being the official history of the international celebration held at San Francisco in 1915 to commemorate the discovery of the Pacific Ocean and the construction of the Panama Canal, Frank Morton Todd, 1921. You can choose between Harvard University or University of Michigan scans.
• San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection: Panama Pacific International Exposition collection, Panorama collection, Stereograph collection.
• The Exploratorium has a complete set of PPIE stereographs online where you can see the original 2-image version and an anaglyph version.
• The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition, Maud Wotring Raymond, describes how