A fair to remember

Do you remember attending the Spokane World’s Fair, which we all called Expo ’74? It was many years ago now, but I sure do.

I’ll tell you my story, but Inland 360 also wants to know yours, so we can share it in an article we plan to publish later this spring to coincide with the event’s 50th anniversary. More on that later.

As near as I can remember — and keep in mind, I am very old — I was riding in the back seat of my sixth grade teacher’s dark blue Volkswagen Bug, along with three of my classmates, one spring afternoon. Miss Johnson was driving us to play in our league softball game across the city of Tacoma from our small, parochial school, and the talk among us was about Expo ’74, the World’s Fair that had just opened in Spokane.

Our teacher said she was going and asked if we all wanted to go with her. You read that correctly: This young (mid-20s) teacher had just volunteered to drive four preteens more than 300 miles across the Cascades to Spokane. So that’s how four girls just out of the sixth grade ended up driving from Seattle, with our teacher and her roommate, to tent camp at a park in Idaho and attend the fair located along the Spokane River.

I don’t remember anything much about the planning that went into the trip. I certainly wouldn’t have had much to do with it. I assume my parents talked to my teacher, but who knows? Things were pretty loosey-goosey in those days. Did my folks chip in on the gas money for that drive? I sure hope so.

I recently phoned my long-ago classmate Maureen Ryan, who lived just around the corner from me as we grew up and who also was along for that trip. I hoped Maureen, who now lives in San Francisco, remembered things I didn’t. Thankfully, she did, but in a long, rambling telephone conversation, both of us repeatedly said about some memories that were a bit more faded than others, “I could be making this up.”

After committing to the trip on the way to that softball game, Maureen remembers Miss Johnson telling the four of us we couldn’t say a word about this to anyone else in our class. “This is a secret,” she said, as Maureen recalled it. Just imagine if she’d had to take the entire class of about 30 kids to Spokane.

Miss Johnson lived in Seattle, so we left from her apartment there, trekking on I-90 across Snoqualmie Pass in that Bug: four girls crammed into the back seat, and Miss Johnson and her roommate (her name is a victim of both my and Maureen’s memories) in the front. All of our belongings were stuffed into the car’s “trunk” which was in the front: sleeping bags, clothes, and a borrowed tent and ice chest.

Maureen remembers, “It was super hot and we were miserable.” The Bug had no seatbelts and no air-conditioning.

Despite all that, we spent two full days at the Expo and had a great time.

“None of us had a whole lot of money,” Maureen says. But there was so much to see, for free, once we were inside the fairgrounds.

I wish I could say how impressed I was by all the different exhibits, but I don’t remember them much. I do remember seeing all the different pavilions and the flags of different nations flying. I also remember going on carnival rides, because we were preteen girls and carnival rides were a big deal. One vivid memory for both of us is when we went on the Matterhorn ride, and Maureen’s new eyeglasses flew off her face and into the mountains. They were recovered, a little worse for their trip through the Alps.

One of my vivid memories is listening to a Caribbean steel drum band play. I had never heard such a thing and was fascinated by how the musicians could play notes on, well, steel drums.

Another memory — one I have recreated in many subsequent springtime visits to the site, which is now Riverfront Park — is walking out to the center of one of the footbridges that spans the Spokane River and feeling the spray from the falls on my face. Amazing.

Maureen visits our hometown of Tacoma regularly but has visited Riverfront Park just once since the fair: “Five years ago, we went (over) for my uncle’s 75th birthday, and it was the first time I (had gone) back. Riverfront Park is just beautiful.”

She took her Kodak Instamatic 126 camera along on the 1974 trip and took a lot of photos, she recalls, but she thinks the prints got thrown away. She does, however, still have her two admission tickets from the fair. They were saved in one of those old-fashioned photo albums with the sticky backing and plastic film. It held no photos.

My tickets are long gone, but I bought a souvenir spoon rest at the fair that has survived 50 years, including several moves, with only its handle broken off and lost. It features detailed, colorful drawings of many of the most recognizable features of the fair like the Washington State Pavilion (which now is the INB Performing Arts Center), the U.S. Pavilion and the gondolas over the falls. It has been a fixture on my kitchen counter for the past 30 years, where it holds my peppermill and the ground pepper which always seems to sift out of it.

Speaking of sifting: It’s now your turn to sift through your memories. We want to hear your story about your trip to the World’s Fair in Spokane. Send a brief (200 words or fewer) description of your visit to Expo ’74 to Mary Stone at mstone@inland360.com or mail your memory to Inland 360, 505 Capital St., Lewiston, ID 83501. We’ll want these by 5 p.m. April 19 so we can include them in the May 2 issue of Inland 360.

50th Celebration

A series of anniversary events make up the Expo ’74 50th Celebration planned from May 4-July 4 in various venues around Spokane.

These include historic walking tours, films, exhibits, panel discussions and more.

An opening celebration, planned for 3-9 p.m. May 4 at Riverfront Park, will include speakers and live performances from arts, cultural, tribal and community organizations.

Closing ceremonies will be from 4-10 p.m. July 4, during Spokane’s annual Independence Day celebration. That event includes an artisan vendor village and community performances, including one by the Spokane Symphony at 9 p.m., followed by a fireworks display at 10.

More information is available at visitspokane.com/expo-50.

DePaul has toiled at the Lewiston Tribune for just shy of 38 years. Currently, she edits and produces the Sunday AM and Sunday Opinion sections, the daily Opinion page and the Blast from the Past photo feature. She can be contacted at jdepaul@lmtribune.com.