History and Beauty Found at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts

 

     It’s a mistake to overlook San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. Originally built as part of the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, which celebrated the completion of the Panama Canal, the Palace of Fine Arts is a magnificent edifice that continues to delight visitors who stroll the shaded grounds surrounding its scenic lagoon.

   The structure was designed by famed California architect Bernard Maybeck, who said it was inspired by an etching depicting a Roman ruin reflected in a pool by 18th century Italian artist Giovanni Piranesi.

   The domed palace housed art exhibits and was one of eleven pavilions constructed for the exposition, which was built on 635 acres of land reclaimed from the San Francisco Bay.

   Like the rest of the structures, the Palace of Fine Arts was originally supposed to be a temporary building that would be removed once the exposition was over. However, a prominent San Francisco socialite, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, was so taken with its classical beauty that she founded the Palace Preservation League while the fair was still ongoing to save the building.

   Her efforts were successful and for several years the palace housed art exhibits. During the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration commissioned several artists to replace deteriorating murals on the rotunda ceiling and, later, the building housed eighteen lighted tennis courts.

   By the 1950s, however, it was clear that the Palace needed to be completely reconstructed. Built of wood covered with a mixture of plaster and a burlap-type fiber, the colonnade and rotunda had deteriorated over time and were considered unsafe.

   In 1964, the original Palace was demolished with the exception of the steel structure of the exhibit hall. The buildings were carefully rebuilt in concrete with steel beams installed to support the rotunda dome. The structure was retrofitted in 2010 to ensure it would survive an earthquake.

   Since it was built, the Palace has become a beloved San Francisco landmark; in recent decades it has been particularly popular as a setting for weddings. It’s also a lovely spot for a picnic or a walk around its scenic lagoon, which is surrounded by towering Australian eucalyptus trees.

   Additionally, a variety of wildlife have taken to living in and around the latter including ducks, geese, swans, frogs and snapping turtles that can be seen sunning themselves on partially submerged tree roots.

   Not surprisingly, the Palace’s photogenic setting in San Francisco’s Marina District has served as a backdrop for a number of films, such as “Vertigo,” “The Rock” and “Bicentennial Man.”

   The Palace’s exhibition hall became home of the Exploratorium from 1969 to 2013, an interactive hands-on science museum for children. In April of 2013, the Exploratorium relocated to Piers 15 and 17 on San Francisco’s Embarcadero. The exhibit hall is now primarily used for special events.

   The Palace of Fine Arts is located at 3301 Lyon Street near San Francisco’s Marina District. For more information, go to https://palaceoffinearts.com/.

The Historic Southern Nevada Town with the Peculiar Name: Searchlight

Old mining remnants can still be found around Searchlight.

   There are several explanations behind how the southern Nevada mining town of Searchlight got its name.

   According to one version, the town was name after a miner named Lloyd Searchlight. Another claimed it was named after a popular brand of matches. And a third is that one of the town’s founders once said it would take a searchlight to find any gold in the place.

   All three stories, in fact, have appeared in various history books over the years, although the latter is the one many historians believe is true.

   In his book, “Searchlight: The Camp That Didn’t Fail,” the late U.S. Senator Harry Reid, who was born in Searchlight in 1939, examined the town’s origins and concluded that the last story was the most believable version.

   Reid said he could find no evidence of any miner named Lloyd Searchlight. He wrote that the tale of the town being named after the Searchlight brand of wooden matches was most likely the fanciful concoction of a descendent of one of the town’s founders.

   His research, however, did show that Searchlight was most likely named by one of the town’s first residents, a prospector named George Colton, who apparently once remarked that there is gold in the area—but it would take a searchlight to find it.

   The story of Searchlight began in about May 1897, although there is some disagreement about the exact date, with the discovery of gold in the area, which is located about an hour south of Las Vegas.

   By July 1898, the Searchlight mining district had been formed and a small camp was established in the desert. By 1902, Searchlight had a post office, a 15-mile long narrow-gauge railroad linking the mines to a mill on the Colorado River, a newspaper, stores, and saloons.

   In 1907, the population crested at several thousand people, although exact numbers are difficult to determine because of the transient nature of mining towns.

   In 1908, Searchlight made a run at being named the seat of newly-formed Clark County but lost out to Las Vegas, which was actually smaller than Searchlight at the time.

   Searchlight’s fortunes, however, were intertwined with the state of its mining industry and when the ore began to fade after 1916, it, too, started to decline. By the 1930 census, only 137 people still lived in Searchlight.

   Today, about 445 people live in the community, many retirees or refugees from the hustle and bustle of bigger cities. The main reminders of the town’s mining past are a handful of slowly-decaying wooden mining headframes still standing on the hills surrounding the town.

   The best place to learn about Searchlight’s rich history is the Searchlight Historic Museum, one of the best small museums in the state, and a branch of the Clark County Heritage Museum in Henderson.

   The museum, located a few blocks from the main street, is easy to find because of the large wooden headframe out front. The headframe was originally constructed in 1904 and stood for many years at the Ruth Elder mine.

   Around the derrick-like structure are other mining artifacts such as a large smelting pot, an ore car, and an arrista, which was a horse-drawn device that was used to crush ore.

   When you first enter the museum, which shares its building with the Searchlight Community Center, you trigger an audio message that welcomes you and begins telling the town’s story.

   The first exhibit you encounter contains a nice collection of Native American baskets and pottery, made by members of the Southern Paiute and Mojave tribes, the region’s original inhabitants. There is also an interesting display of Indian grinding tools, and a unique ring and pin game once popular with Native Americans.

   Citing historic documents and photos, the museum’s displays detail Searchlight’s rise to become the largest community in southern Nevada at the start of the 20th century.

   One display contains photos of the first post office as well as scenes of the town’s newspaper offices and a place known as “the Big Store,” a kind of early 20th century Wal-Mart.

   Adjacent is an exhibit filled with old bottles, an early 20th century rodeo program, a miner’s candlestick, and other items.

   Another exhibit shows minerals found in the region such as quartz, feldspar, and, naturally, gold.

   One of the most unique displays in an old player piano, upon which is the sheet music for a Scott Joplin song called the “Searchlight Rag.” It turns out that while Joplin never visited Searchlight, he wrote the music in 1907 as a tribute to two friends, Charles and Tom Turpin, who once owned a mine in Searchlight.

   The Turpin brothers apparently didn’t stay long in Nevada but did share their mining experiences with the famed ragtime composer, who was inspired to write the rag in their honor.

   Another exhibit profiles noteworthy people who were born, raised or lived in Searchlight, including Senator Reid and Academy Award-winning costume designer Edith Head, who spent a few years there as a girl.

   Additionally, in the 1930s and 40s, movie cowboy star Rex Bell, who later became Nevada’s lieutenant governor, and his wife, actress Clara Bow, had a large ranch near Searchlight. Both occasionally participated in local events such as holiday parades and rodeos.

   The Searchlight Historic Museum is open Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday by appointment. There is no admission charge but donations are welcome.

  For more information about Searchlight, go to https://www.clarkcountynv.gov/government/departments/parks___recreation/cultural_division/musuems/searchlight_musuem.php.