How the architecture of the Panama-California Exposition,
which influenced the appearance of all California, flowed from designs
of famed buildings in historic Spain, Mexico and Italy

World-traveled people who first walked across the bridge to enter the Panama-California Exposition at San Diego were reminded of the approach to the ancient brown city of Toledo in central Spain, famous for centuries for its finely tempered steel. There were the same long bridge, the guarding gate and the mounting mass of buildings. Toledo lies in a loop of Rio Tajo and the photo below shows the west approach over the old San Martín bridge which dates from the 13th and 14th Centuries. Above it rises the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes commissioned in 1476, an architectural mixture of Gothic and Mudéjar, or post-Moorish, styles. It bears the coat of arms of Ferdinand and Isabella who financed Columbus' voyage of discovery of America. From the east approach over the Alcántara bridge one sees high on the hill the famed Alcázar.