San Francisco, 1938
Meanwhile, out on the left coast, San Francisco held its own fair in 1939 and 1940 to celebrate the recent completion of its two bridges -- the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, completed in November 1936, and the Golden Gate Bridge, completed in April 1937. The Golden Gate International Exposition also celebrated the city's position as a gateway to the Pacific with its theme, "Pageant of the Pacific."
The map above comes from the Almanac for Thirty-Niners, a book compiled by the Workers of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration. (Among many other fascinating facts, the book includes this entry for January 27: "The first toothbrushes seen in California were unloaded, along with axes, shoes, fish-lines, and grindstones, from an American vessel which tied up at the Embarcadero of San Jose in 1840.")
The expo took place on Treasure Island, which frankly hasn't been much fun ever since. With World War II looming, the island was soon converted into a Navy base. The base closed in 1997, but development has been stymied by toxic contamination, a high risk of liquefaction during an earthquake, and political wrangling.