Zoro Garden Nudist Colony
Zoro Gardens Nudist Colony was an attraction at the 1935-36 Pacific International Exposition in Balboa Park in San Diego, California. It was located in Zoro Garden, a sunken garden originally created for the 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition. Billed as a nudist colony, it was populated by hired performers rather than actual practicing nudists. The women wore only G-strings; the men wore loincloths or trunks. The participants lounged around in their "colony", played volleyball and other games, and performed a quasi-religious "Sacrifice to the Sun God" five times a day. Fair attendees could pay for admission to bleacher-type seats, or they could peek through knotholes in a wooden fence for free. On August 27, 1936, the colony closed, allegedly "after an argument with Exposition officials about finances."
Contemporary newspaper accounts indicate the "colony" was composed of actual nudists, but local historian Matthew Alice has stated that the women were "wearing flesh-colored bras, G-strings, or body stockings so everything was zipped up tight." However, the women were indeed topless, as countless un-doctored photographs plainly show.
Excerpted with permission from the book: "San Diego's Balboa Park" by David Marshall, AIA Nate Eagle, a sideshow promoter who, with partner Stanley R. Graham, created the scandalous Zoro Gardens nudist colony. Located in a sunken garden east of the Palace of Better Housing (today's Casa de Balboa), Zoro Gardens was, according to the Zoro Gardens program, "designed to explain to the general public the ideals and advantages of natural outdoor life." Topless women and bearded men in loincloths read books, sunbathed, and acted in pseudo-religious rituals to the Sun God. According to the program, "Healthy young men and women, indulging in the freedom of outdoor living in which they so devoutly believe, have opened their colony to the friendly, curious gaze of the public." The public’s curious gaze quickly turned Zoro Gardens into the Exposition’s most lucrative outdoor attraction. Despite protests, Zoro Gardens lasted for the entire run of the Exposition. The area is now the Zoro Butterfly Garden.
Read more about Zoro Garden Nudist Colony: Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words garden, nudist and/or colony:
“Two wooden tubs of blue hydrangeas stand at the foot of the stone steps.
The sky is a blue gum streaked with rose. The trees are black.
The grackles crack their throats of bone in the smooth air.
Moisture and heat have swollen the garden into a slum of bloom.
Pardie! Summer is like a fat beast, sleepy in mildew....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Reporters for tabloid newspapers beat a path to the park entrance each summer when the national convention of nudists is held, but the cult’s requirement that visitors disrobe is an obstacle to complete coverage of nudist news. Local residents interested in the nudist movement but as yet unwilling to affiliate make observations from rowboats in Great Egg Harbor River.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
““Tall tales” were told of the sociability of the Texans, one even going so far as to picture a member of the Austin colony forcing a stranger at the point of a gun to visit him.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)