One hundred years after Texas was founded, the state organized a grand birthday party to celebrate and show the world exactly what the Lone Star State had to offer – the 1936 Texas Centennial. The world’s fair was a whopping 178 days long and attracted six million visitors, showcasing the state’s heritage and assets in agriculture, natural resources and business.
LEFT Tenor and its counterpart, Contralto (not shown) — a pair of Art Deco statue — adorn the Esplanade Fountain. RIGHT Big Tex, erected in 1952, has served as the State Fair’s cultural icon since.
The road to the 1936 Centennial, however, was long and bumpy. For starters, Texas took on the enormous project at a time when the country was still suffering from the lingering national economic depression. In 1935, the State Legislature provided $3 million for the statewide celebration, but the state expected the Centennial headquarters city to be responsible for most of its expenses. A competition quickly developed between Dallas, San Antonio and Houston to determine which would become the headquarters city.
It soon became clear that Dallas was the frontrunner. Not only did the city have strong interest in taking on both the job and the financial obligations, but it could also offer an 80-acre area with public spaces and roads that had already been used for the State Fair. The Dallas business community worked to gain approval of the local, federal and corporate funding needed for the city to serve as headquarters. They acquired additional land to increase the available acreage to 200 and created a special corporation that employed 100 architects and numerous contractors to design and construct Centennial buildings.
The Centennial Exposition opened on June 6, 1936, providing visitors a broad range of exhibits and entertainment, including a show called the “Cavalcade of Texas,” a large livestock exposition and displays on an array of modern technology. American singer, actor and bandleader Rudy Vallée was one of the many national stars to perform. The Centennial also made full use of the “myth of the cowboy” to lure visitors in order to show them the many other dimensions of the state.
You can still visit many of the great Centennial buildings at Fair Park in Dallas today — impressive for both their size as well as their Art Deco design. George L. Dahl was the lead architect for the Centennial buildings, and he and his assistants designed these dramatic structures. The Hall of State was the official Texas State building, and today it hosts exhibits from the Dallas Historical Society. The Magnolia Lounge was the hospitality lounge of the Magnolia Petroleum Company, reflecting Texas’ importance as an oil and gas center. The Leonhardt Lagoon was designed to be a tranquil area around which key Centennial buildings were located. The only building not in Art Deco style, the Old Mill Inn served as a promotional building for the flour milling industry. The African American Museum is a contemporary building built on the site of the Centennial Hall of Negro Life. The Museum of Nature and Science has seen most of its functions relocated to the new Perot campus downtown. The Music Hall was originally the General Motors Building and is in Spanish Colonial revival style. The Fair Park Band Shell is a 5,000-seat amphitheater in the Art Deco style. And last, the Discovery Garden was the Horticulture Building and is the site for the 1936 Portland Cement Company’s model home.
SITES TO BEHOLD (clockwise from top left) Texas Hall of State; the Tejas Warrior, sculpted by Allie Victoria Tennant, at the State Hall is a signature element of the exterior; Spirit of the Centennial statue depicts a young woman rising from a cactus plant; the famous Woofus, a statue on the side of the Swine Building that’s a blend of six animals: sheep, Texas Longhorn, horse, hog, turkey and duck; Centennial Building.
These buildings provided Texas with the opportunity to promote its food and agriculture, including grains, livestock and poultry. In addition, all of the major national auto, food and fuel companies were there to display their many services and products — including air conditioning, which was just then becoming more widely available. Despite looming war possibilities in Europe, Germany even had a large area to promote travel to their country.
The Centennial wasn’t just relegated to Dallas; it was a statewide celebration that included 241 official events, like Jacksonville’s National Tomato Show, Mount Pleasant’s Milk Festival and Mission’s Citrus Festival. Local rodeos, livestock shows and pageants were dedicated to the Centennial, and historic sites across the state received much-needed repairs and signs. In preparation, Texas placed numerous large granite markers all across the state to educate visitors about its colorful heritage. Today Texas is one the best states in the nation for providing heritage information, an effort that started with the Centennial.
LEFT Leonhardt Lagoon in 2014, the third year in which the colorfully lighted Chinese Lantern Festival filled the lagoon area. RIGHT built in 1936, the Tower Building is capped by a bald eagle.
When powerful Fort Worth promoter Amon Carter found out that Dallas had been picked to be the headquarters for the Texas Centennial, he became determined to create an extravaganza that would outshine it. He organized the Fort Worth Frontier Centennial, planned and directed by nationally renowned New York theater producer Billy Rose with the tagline, “For education go to Dallas, for entertainment come to Fort Worth!”
The Frontier Centennial took the spectacle to the next level with saloons, burlesque and Old West shows, circus plays with elephants, and the ever-popular Sally Rand’s Nude Dude Ranch. As an aggressive promotional tactic, Amon Carter placed a huge 130-by-60-foot neon sign across from the entrance to Fair Park urging Centennial attendees to go to Fort Worth for real “Wild and Whoo-pee!” fun. It was the second-largest neon sign in the country at the time. Other advertising cheekily proclaimed that visitors would see “The Old West Recreated in the Flesh!” The Will Rogers Memorial Complex is the only major Centennial building remaining in Fort Worth today.
NOT ITS FIRST RODEO The Will Rogers Memorial Center is an 85-acre complex located in Fort Worth. The complex is named for the American humorist and writer, and is the home of the annual Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. The Memorial Center was built in 1936, and designed by architect Wyatt C. Hedrick, who employed the Moderne (Art Deco) style.
Both Fair Park and the Will Rogers Memorial Center are currently involved in dynamic evolutions. Today in Dallas, there is lively community debate about the possible transfer of Fair Park to private management and about the need for major infrastructure investments. In Fort Worth, construction is underway to create a much larger arena complex in addition to the historic complex from 1936. This arena will provide a new home for the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo as well as space for large concerts.
