One hundred years ago this summer, roughly 3.7 million people descended onto the UW’s campus for Seattle’s first world’s fair, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (AYPE).

In an event designed to mark Seattle’s emergence as a modern American city — and outdo regional rival Portland for East Coast investment dollars — the 1909 world’s fair, running from June 1 to Oct. 16, celebrated the rich natural resources of the Northwest, emphasized its trading ties to the Pacific Rim, and physically transformed what had been the woodsy campus of the newly transplanted UW into the landscaped, organized grounds of today.

“Seattle wanted the infrastructure to last,” said John Findlay, a UW professor of history. “Why not invest in a resource and get the most use out of it as possible?”

A lasting legacy

At the turn of the century, the UW was expanding rapidly, but the four original buildings, present-day Denny, Lewis, Clark and Parrington halls, couldn’t keep up with the “leapfrogging enrollments” of the early 1900s, Findlay said.

Until 1885, the territorial university had maintained a K-12 preparatory school, but statehood meant a bigger university without adequate funding. Soon after shifting to its current site near Lake Washington in 1895, it had added a graduate school. Meanwhile, Seattle’s population had zoomed from about 80,000 people in 1900 to 237,000 in 1910, according to the U.S. census.

“In this period, Seattle stopped being a place that imported everything … it became a place that manufactured the things it consumed,” said Michael Herschensohn, manager of the AYPE centennial for the city. “The AYPE is the sign that the city has come of age.”

The UW was quick to capitalize on the location of the fair on its campus.

With $600,000 in funding, the city’s planning committee directed noted landscape architect John C. Olmsted to design a thematic campus that would last beyond the 4 1/2 months the fair was slated to run. Olmsted’s plans transformed 250 acres of trees and ferns into manicured fairgrounds, complete with electrically lit buildings, a fountain, a natural amphitheater (where Padelford Hall’s parking lot is today) and a carefully constructed view of Mt. Rainier.

“The greatest legacy of the fair has been the grounds of the campus,” said Alan Stein, a historian with HistoryLink.org, a site that chronicles the Northwest’s history. Compared to the other fairs of the period, including the 1893 Chicago world’s fair, the AYPE left a more lasting physical mark.

However, of the more than 20 themed buildings constructed for the fair, only five remain, including parts of the UW’s power plant and the Physical Plant Office Building across from the HUB.

The two best surviving examples from the fair include Cunningham and Architecture halls, made of wood and brick, respectively. Originally the Fine Arts Building for the fair, Architecture Hall has been thoroughly restored and remains perhaps the finest example of the fair’s surviving structures.

Most of the other buildings were constructed of plaster and wood, but the UW pressed them into service after the fair finished.

The original Forestry Building, composed along the same classical Beaux Arts lines as many of its peers, was an example of how the university tried to squeeze as much life out of the AYPE structures as possible: It soldiered on after the fair’s conclusion as a forest and botanical museum and later the State Museum, the Burke, before it was demolished after dry rot caused it to be declared unsafe. The HUB stands there today.

Putting controversy in context

Besides the triumphal educational buildings, the Pay Streak, the fair’s “infotainment” section, included controversial elements, at least to modern sensibilities.

Hitting a “pay streak” meant that one had hit a rich vein of ore (“struck it rich”); this same spirit was meant to apply to the fair’s entertainment boulevard, which contained such silly-but still-lucrative attractions as the House Upside Down, reenactments of the Battle of Gettysburg, Albert (the educated horse), the “Streets of Cairo,” the Fairy Gorge Tickler (a sort of early gravity-assisted ride), and a “baby incubator” showcasing the latest in neonatal care.

The Pay Streak also featured Inuits from Alaska and the “uncivilized” Bontoc tribe from the island of Luzon in the Philippines (in an “Igorrote Village”), essentially on display for fairgoers to observe as they carried out indigenous activities. These displays were basically theatrical in nature, but the native peoples’ performances illustrate an older, imperialistic mindset, said Nicolette Bromberg, the visual materials curator at the UW Libraries Special Collections.

“You have to look at the attitudes then, not now,” she said, emphasizing the importance of being careful when applying modern-day mores to older ideas of ethnic identity.

The Igorrotes — an indigenous people of the Philippines — were the most obvious case of moral ambiguity, noted by HistoryLink.org historian Paula Becker.

“The language often used to describe [the Igorrotes] is loaded with implication: One often reads that they were ‘brought to the AYP Exposition’ and ‘placed on display,” Becker said. “My take on this is that while they were certainly marketed salaciously, I cannot assume that they experienced the fair as exploitation.”

Becker explained that the Igorrotes were not at the fair against their will and were paid performers. While their self-constructed village seems zoo-like to modern eyes, the group offered a positive record of their experience to the press in the few interviews they gave.

While the experiences of some of the fair’s participants were thus mixed, ultimately, the fair’s impact on Seattle, the UW and the state remains a generally positive, signifying growth and civic accomplishment.

“The AYP Exposition was incontrovertible evidence that this city could plan and pull off a 4 1/2 month event that drew national, even global, attention,” Becker said. “I see the exposition as Seattle’s real point of entry onto the world stage.”

Reach Opinion Editor Will Mari at features@dailyuw.com.