‘Promoting Merced’ next museum exhibit

A world fair about to celebrate its 100th anniversary, that had a lasting impact on Merced County, is the focus of the next Merced County Courthouse Museum exhibit.

Guest speakers, historical artifacts and pictures from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco will be part of the opening of “Promoting Merced: A County of Many Resources” at 5 p.m. Thursday at the museum, 21st and N streets. The opening-night event is free.

Like many Central Valley counties, Merced County sent a contingent of promoters to the San Francisco fair to get people to move inland and settle in the area. Merced and Mariposa counties’ day at the fair was March 19, 1915. “They pooled their resources together to put on a display,” said Sarah Lim, the museum’s director.

The fair was meant to both celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, which opened up access to California, and show the world that San Francisco had been rebuilt since the 1906 earthquake. The fair was also a good place to show off, because it drew people from around the world.

The museum’s exhibit is broken up into themes used by the promoters, who were looking to highlight Merced County. Each theme is noted by a quote from a promotional book used at the fair, with sayings such as “Merced County is a good place to live” and “Merced is an intelligent, literary county.”

The promoters tried to put their best foot forward and touted statistics such as the county’s death rate, which at the time was seventh-best of 58 counties in the state. Last year, Merced ranked 32nd.

The writers of the promotional book also got colorful with their language, perhaps stretching the truth. One excerpt says the county only sees “a few days” each summer when temperatures get much higher than 79 degrees.

Charlie Galatro, a member of the museum’s board of directors, said the exhibit highlights how different Merced County looked then. “There’s just a lot of interesting contrasts,” he said.

He said 1915 was an important time for California’s growth.

In a time before TV and the Internet, having a booklet and a display at the San Francisco fair was an effective way to promote Merced County. “This was a big item to get people to come,” he said.

Many factors surely contributed to the growth of Merced County, so it’s difficult to tease out exactly how big a role the fair played. The population change in Merced might hint at whether the promotional effort at the fair was a success.

From 1900 to 1910, before the fair, Merced County’s population grew from about 9,000 to about 15,000. But, during the decade that included the fair, the population jumped up to more than 24,000 by 1920.

The exhibit is set to run through July 19. Regular admission to the museum is also free, and the doors are open Wednesday through Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m.

For more, call the museum at (209) 723-2401 or go to www.mercedmuseum.org.

This story was originally published March 12, 2015 at 5:19 PM with the headline "‘Promoting Merced’ next museum exhibit."