Official guide of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition -- 1915, San Francisco, California, U.S.A., Opening Day, February 20, 1915; Closing Day, December 4, 1915. . . .

San Francisco, CA: Panama-Pacific International Exposition, The Wahlgreen Co., Official Publishers, 1915. 8vo. 160 pp. With 1 large folding frontisp. exhibition map, 4-panel, birds-eye panorama and hotel advertising on recto, 1 large folding map at rear, “Peter’s San Francisco Locator, the Birds-eye-view map of the Exposition City,” numerous photo illustrations, text illustrations throughout. Colour-illustrated softcovers, view of the “Domed City” on front cover, advertisement for Southern Pacific RR on back cover (minor creasing, edgewear, minor chipping), still VG- copy, from the library of Prof. Marvin Nathan. First edition, stated (variant issue with both large folding maps), of this relatively scarce original guidebook to the 1915 PPIE. Of particular interest is the large folding Birds-eye-view map prepared originally in 1914 or the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and later incorporated into some of the copies of the Official Guide. The fine pictorial map by Peter (1878-1963) mirrors another he issued in 1913 for Nova Piedmont in Piedmont, CA showing the land promotion tract with Oakland, and was issued for the Nova Piedmont Realty Syndicate. He was a Bay Area saloon-keeper who turned to commercial art by 1913, and worked for the Sierra Art Engraving Co. in Oakland, CA, later moved to St. Louis, and during the Great Depression became a machinist. Worldcat locates 8 copies of this variant (The Met, CS Fresno, Yale, Smithsonian, Newberry, Northwestern, Indiana U, Cincinnati Art Mus.).