Nate Eagle, a sideshow promoter who, with partner Stanley R. Graham, created the scandalous Zoro* Garden nudist colony. Located in a sunken garden east of the Palace of Better Housing (today's Casa de Balboa), Zoro Garden was, according to the Zoro Garden program, "designed to explain to the general public the ideals and advantages of natural outdoor life." Topless women and bearded men in loincloths read books, sunbathed, and acted in pseudo-religious rituals to the Sun God. According to the program, "Healthy young men and women, indulging in the freedom of outdoor living in which they so devoutly believe, have opened their colony to the friendly, curious gaze of the public." The public's curious gaze quickly turned Zorro Garden into the Exposition's most lucrative outdoor attraction. Despite protests, Zorro Garden lasted for the entire run of the Exposition. The area is now the Zoro Butterfly Garden.

Protests came from the San Diego Council of Catholic Women, the Women's Civic Center and the San Diego Braille Club**. In response the city manager announced that there would be no "indecent" shows in Balboa Park during the second season of the exposition, which opened in February 1936. However, the nudist colony was still there during the second season.The San Diego County district attorney, Thomas Whalen, inspected the colony the day before the opening of the exposition in May 1935 and approved it.  Next month, "amateur nudists" demanded that Whalen investigate the showgirls as frauds, but he declined. One of the Zorro women rode through the fairgrounds at Gold Gulch on a burro and was arrested, but she was "acquitted and rode again under police supervision.”

* There seems to be some confusion as to whether it was “Zoro”, having to do with the God Zoroaster, or “Zorro” -- the dashing character of our childhood, “who makes the sign of the ‘Z’.”

** Braille Club?  Well, THAT conjures up an image! “Hold still! For a quarter I can tell you your cup size.”