SPOKANE, Wash. – As Expo ’74’s 50th anniversary approaches, the event’s impact on Spokane’s history and future is being celebrated.
Bill Youngs, an Eastern Washington University (EWU) history professor and author of “The Fair and the Falls,” shared his insights into the fair’s significance.
“It was a true World’s Fair, and people came from around the world to be there,” Youngs said.
The book, which is considered the definitive history of Spokane’s World’s Fair, contains over 600 pages detailing Expo’s origins and its wide-reaching impacts on Spokane’s landscape and the trajectory of the Inland Northwest.
“The fair was, in fact, one of the reasons I came to Spokane and came to Eastern,” Youngs said. “I just thought, ‘a small town like that, that can have a World’s Fair?’ That’s significant, that’s interesting.”
Expo ’74, the world’s first environmental-themed World’s Fair, was a project pioneered by King Cole aimed at revitalizing a struggling post-war Downtown Spokane and beautifying the Spokane River.
“It was very, very presumptuous in a certain sense, because no town the size of Spokane had ever hosted a World’s Fair,” Youngs said.
The fair reshaped the landscape of downtown Spokane.
“You didn’t just have the exhibits, but you had the fair site itself,” Youngs said. “There were railroad trestles blocking the view of Havermale Island and the river. Those trestles were taken down, so you now have the park the way it is today.”
As for Expo ’74’s 50th anniversary later this summer? Youngs hopes it serves as a launchpad for Spokane to continue working for a better tomorrow, while still honoring those who shaped our today.
“It could be very inspirational in terms of the total ethos of the community, that ‘the little city that could,’ still can.”
Youngs is working towards republishing his book as a paperback to make it more accessible to readers across the community, though a timeline for its republishing is still uncertain.
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