The Texas Centennial Exposition of 1936 was a “not-quite world’s” fair held in Fair Park of Dallas Texas, celebrating Texas’ independence from Mexico gained in 1836. Unlike most world’s fairs, a number of buildings were not torn down, and continue in use in Fair Park for the annual Texas state fair and other large events.
For the Texas Centennial Celebrations there were several different poster stamp issues produced.
This set of six images reproduces publicity posters for the event. The set was issued in two formats – sheets of 18 stamps on white paper and panes of 6 stamps on yellowish paper. This is a complete pane of 6, showing Big Bend National Park and the Gulf of Mexico; the Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo in San Antonio; and various stereotypical people renderings.
In order to boost nationwide attendance, organizers were aware that they needed to promote Texas as an entertaining place for tourism, and hired a pro photographer to travel the state. This series of 12 [?] is signed by artist Frank Calder. Frank Hill Calder (1890-1968) was born and raised in Hinesville, Georgia. He settled in Dallas, Texas, where he arrived in 1918 after serving in World War I, and established a commercial art business using the name Frank Calder Studio of Commercial Art. He also taught in The American School of Commercial Art until his death in 1968. Calder exhibited often with the Annual Texas Artists Exhibitions and at the State Fair in Dallas. Like the pane of 6, the look of the fair is not shown, just the state in general.
A single design in red & blue printed in panes of six copies, Artist and printer are unknown, as with most of these fair stamps. As with the others, the actual site is shown in a stylized way as background.
Unlike the bigger Chicago fair of 1933-4, there were very few separate corporate pavilions, and very few stamps to promote private business exhibits.
1937 Reopening: The Pan American Exposition
After a successful five-month run, the Texas Centennial Exposition was closed. But the buildings were kept and reopened the following year as the “Greater Texas & Pan-American Exposition”, an attempt at a Pan-American fair with countries of North, Central & South America invited. There was also a “Pan-American Olympics”.
The exhibition promoted the city of Dallas as the cultural and economic capital of an emerging Pan-American civilization stretching from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska. Every exhibition building constructed for the 1936 fair (except the Hall of Negro Life, which was demolished) was inexpensively redecorated for the event, but most major exhibitors (such as General Motors, Ford and Chrysler) did not return in 1937. The event also included the Pan American Olympics, pitting the nations of North, Central, and South America against one another in a series of interracial contests.
The exhibition opened for a slightly shorter period in 1937. The exposition failed to live up to expectations, attracting only a third of the numbers from the previous year, but it did help pay for the fair improvement costs. The idea was revisited with Hemisfair in San Antonio in 1968.
There were very few new stamps issued for the 1937 season. This set of three seems to have been printed only as a vertical strip. Note there is a glimpse of the fair buildings behind the entertainers.
This round seal for 1937 is rare, about 6″ in diameter, intended as a window or luggage label.
After 1936, almost all of the buildings were saved to be reused in 1937. One notable exception was the building called the “Hall Of Negro Life”, which was demolished. Although there were a number of advances in integration of shows and facilities at the fair, the management acted to remove the one building showing African American history and accomplishments. Texas is, culturally a southern, originally slave state.
