Marina District Part 1: From Bay Waters to a World’s Fair

This is Part 1 of a 3-part series exploring San Francisco’s Marina District.

Before the pastel homes and waterfront jogging paths, this land was water. The area we now call the Marina was once part of San Francisco Bay, a tidal marsh dotted with small docks and working piers. In 1915 the city transformed it completely to host the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a world’s fair celebrating the completion of the Panama Canal and the city’s rebirth after the 1906 earthquake.

Engineers filled the marsh with rubble from earthquake ruins and built a glittering fairground of palaces and gardens. The star of the show was the Palace of Fine Arts, an ornate Greco-Roman style structure that still stands as the district’s most beloved landmark. After the fair ended, most of the buildings were dismantled, but the Palace was saved and eventually rebuilt in concrete, giving the new neighborhood a dramatic centerpiece.

With the fair’s end and new solid ground to build on, developers began creating a residential community along the Bay. Wide streets and Mediterranean-style houses replaced the fairgrounds, setting the stage for the Marina’s next chapter.

Next time we’ll look at the 1906 earthquake’s lingering impact and the Marina’s role in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake.