The Legend Of Richard Halliburton
Hong Kong to Treasure Island, California 2014

The 9,000 mile journey begins…

Richard Halliburton
1900-1939

Adventurer, educator and author of 7 books, all of them New York Times bestsellers. The Royal Road to Romance, The Glorious Adventure, New Worlds to Conquer, The Flying Carpet, Seven League Boots, The Book of Marvels – Occident, The Book of Marvels – Orient, and Richard Halliburton’s Story of His Life’s Adventures kept Halliburton on the Times best seller list from 1925 to 1938.

Halliburton mingled with the California nobility of his time, including Senator James Phelan and his nephew, philanthropist Noel Sullivan, who invited Halliburton as his guest to the elite Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio, California. The state's "First Lady of Letters," Gertrude Atherton, also entertained Halliburton at her palatial estate, Villa Montalvo, in Saratoga.

Besides being an educator, Richard Halliburton was a cultural ambassador, bringing home to Americans some knowledge of the manners of foreign peoples while bringing to those very foreign peoples a sense of his own country’s values. Through the Sea Dragon Expedition he hoped to create a symbolic cultural link between Asia and America, and to show that many cultures might meaningfully and peacefully co-exist in one world.
Excerpt from Hong Kong Daily News - January 19, 1939

“Hello and Goodbye”

Tomorrow and Saturday you will see a vividly painted junk named the “Sea Dragon” moored to pier No. 1 Kowloon. This colourful vessel with its terra-cotta, white and orange sails is due to put to sea Sunday morning, six-thirty o-clock, bound across the Pacific Ocean. Keelung, Midway, Honolulu and the Lagoon of the Trade Winds at the San Francisco Fair is the course and final destination.

…..Since October, the date of Richard Halliburton’s arrival in Hong Kong, he has assembled his crew of 12, saw to it that this junk was designed and built in 45 days (record time), and bucked the “no can do” of many people connected with the venture. Now, he is all set and hopes to hoist sail and away on Sunday.

.....March 24, 1939 (last dispatch from Sea Dragon)
“Southerly gales, rain, squalls, lee rail underwater, wet bunks, hardtack, bully beef, having a wonderful time…..wish you were here instead of me”

Sea Dragon 2

The Sea Dragon 2 Expedition Home project will commission the building of a Sea Dragon replica. Our goal is to complete Richard Halliburton’s failed and fatal attempt to cross the Pacific in March 1939. We will sail a junk named the Sea Dragon 2 across the Pacific from Hong Kong to Treasure Island, San Francisco in 2014 for the 75th anniversary celebration of the opening of the Golden Gate International Exposition also know as the 1939 - San Francisco World’s Fair.

Treasure Island, California

The Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939-1940, on Treasure Island, San Francisco, California, celebrated adventure, trade, and cultural development among all the countries and islands touching the waters of the Pacific Ocean--past, present and future.

www.treasureislandmuseum.org

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