(CSU, Dominguez Hills Photograph Collection)
Performing arts, Balboa Park

‘Did You Know…’

By Frank Sabatini Jr.

…that “nudists” mingled and lazed among the flora in Balboa Park during the 1935-36 Pacific International Exposition? Set within a sunken stone grotto that is now Zoro Garden, the area was the site of a daring exhibit called the “Zorro” Garden Nudist Colony. Bleacher seats encircled the colony as paying attendees spied upon men wearing loincloths and women dressed only in G-strings. They engaged in lawn games and sun-worshiping rituals while lounging intermittently.

It was a daily, controversial display of free-spirited living that continued through two seasons of the exhibition, despite complaints and protests by the former San Diego Council of Catholic Women and other local organizations that tried getting the city to shut it down.