50 years ago in Expo history: The newest fair exhibit announced? The ‘Vanishing Animal Pavilion’

Spokane County announced plans to build its own exhibit at Expo ’74: the Vanishing Animal Pavilion.

It would include three exhibits with live animals: a birds of prey area, a tide pool exhibit and a timber wolf enclosure featuring three wolves from the Portland Zoo.

The goal was to inform people about the plight of endangered species, in keeping with Expo ’74’s environmental theme.

The county commissioners signed a letter of intent to create the exhibit, appropriated $200,000 for its construction and named several naturalists to help design it.

From 100 years ago: The Spokane Daily Chronicle had this tantalizing front-page headline: “Gold Is Found East of the City.”

Louis Myer claimed he found the “biggest gold showing I have ever seen and I have been in most of the gold districts from the Klondike to South America.”

And it was only 3 miles outside the city limits.

The site was south of Dishman near the foothills of Mica Peak. The owner of the land said she was planning to develop a gold-mining operation, with Myer in charge.

Myer made no attempt to downplay the find – in fact, the opposite. Myer called it a “bona fide strike” and said “there seems to be gold all over the hill.”

This would turn out to be an exaggeration, and Spokane would never turn into the new Klondike.