Thursday's Ladies and Gentlemen, The Cow Palace

The oddly named, and weirdly placed Cow Palace has been the bay area venue for, well, everything.  You name it, it's been there, from Cirque du Soleil to the Grand National Rodeo, to the 1964 Republican Convention.  But what is the story of this underrated and under-appreciated venue.  Why did it get that name and why was it built where it is, straddling two cities and two counties?

The Cow Palace

When it opened in 1941 it was called the California State Livestock Pavilion.  The area just south of San Francisco was rural and agriculture was the predominant industry.  As there were no real large spaces for ranchers and farmers to exhibit, the soon-to-be-renamed Cow Place was inspired by the popularity of the livestock pavilion at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition.  The Cow Palace is officially the 1-A District Agricultural Association, a State agency of the California Department of Food and Agriculture's Division of Fairs and Expositions. 

Try to fit that on a business card. 

And for a decade 4-H and livestock shows, rodeos, and other agriculture-themed events were the Cow Palace’s main exhibitors.

Unknown to the Cow Palaces' developers, and most rural areas that ringed cities, the post-war boom necessitated a building frenzy which carpeted miles of farmland.  Those rolling green hills and pastures were soon supplanted by miles and miles of housing developments.  Within a decade, those Ag shows slowed to a trickle.

Yet the Cow Palace persevered and branched out into other kinds of exhibitions including sports, concerts, and just about anything you can think of.  Before the Oakland Arena and Coliseum, before Candlestick and Oracle Parks, before the Shark Tank there was only the Cow Palace for major sporting events. In fact, the tennis match scene at the beginning of the 1942 film, Women of the Year (starring Spencer Tracy and Kathrine Hepburn) was shot at the Cow Palace. 

Before they got a permanent home in Oakland, the Golden State Warriors only knew the Cow Palace.  Same goes for the San Jose Sharks,  While their permanent home was being built in downtown San Jose, they played at the Cow Palace.

This little venue that could, was (is) also the place where history was made.  Hard to believe that there was a time (not that long ago) when San Francisco was a conservative Republican town.  Caspar Weinberger, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense represented San Francisco in the state assembly for six years in the 1950s.  Dwight Eisenhower was renominated in the Cow Palace at the 1956 Republican Convention.

As I mentioned earlier, the 1964 Republican Convention was held at the Cow Palace, and it is where presidential nominee Barry Goldwater famously declared,  "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."  If you are a bay area political history nerd like me, then that's' quite historic.

In addition to its sports and political history, the Cow Palace welcomed performers for all ages.  Major rock stars from Elvis to the Beatles, to Nirvana and Neil Diamond have graced its stage.  Jerry Garcia (founder of the Grateful Dead) grew up in the Excelsior District of San Francisco, which lays next to the Cow Palace, so they too performed many shows there.  For he record, Carlos Santana, U2, Sting, and The Who have also played there.

The Cow Palace is no stranger to family-friendly entertainment, as both Ringling Brothers Circus and Cirque du Soliel have performed.  Every Christmas season the Cow Palace is reimagined as Victorian London for the Great Dickens Christmas Fair, replete with shops selling holiday-themed products and actors mingling with the crowd. 

What's nice about the fair is that it is held over several weekends during the Christmas season, so there are plenty of opportunities to get that last-minute gift. Don't be surprised if someone dressed as a chimneysweep approaches you, tips his stovepipe top hat and says, "Top O' the mornin' Gov'na."

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