Calendar for Expo ‘74’s golden anniversary to be released in January, feature celebrations of history, culture and environmentalism

The 85,000 people who traveled to downtown Spokane to kick off a world’s fair on May 4, 1974, saw the fruits of business leaders, artists, politicians and more come to life in a reimagined trainyard.

Those who come to a revamped downtown park this summer will see a similar collaboration of efforts, said Matt Santangelo, the program manager for the Expo ’74 golden anniversary.

“There was no coercing of people or twisting of arms,” said Santangelo, the former executive director of Hoopfest who’s the ring leader for the celebration while working as a financial adviser for D.A. Davidson. “It was everyone asking, ‘How can we be a part of this?’ ”

Organizers plan to release a daily event schedule in January for the commemoration, which will begin May 4 and last through the Fourth of July. A team of volunteers has been soliciting input from cultural, environmental, historic preservation and Indigenous groups for programming to fill those 62 days in hopes of celebrating the region’s past and inspiring ideas for its future, Santangelo said.

“The idea is that there’s something Expo-inspired every day,” Santangelo said.

Expo 50 will have events centered around five main themes, what organizers are calling “pillars.” They are the legacy of the world’s fair, the culture of local Indigenous tribes, recreation and sports, the arts and – in an homage to the original Expo ’74 theme – environmental stewardship.

Work began with community partners initially investing seed money into organizing the event, including the city of Spokane and Spokane County, business boosters including Greater Spokane Incorporated and the Downtown Spokane Partnership, as well as the tourism firm Visit Spokane, which is marketing the event and hosting a countdown on their website to the opening ceremony.

Spokane Parks & Recreation, responsible for maintaining the 100-acre park where the celebrations will take place, is working to coordinate interested groups into the programming plan for the event, said Fianna Dickson, communications manager for Spokane parks. They’re also setting up a community stage where different community groups can connect with audiences each weekend during Expo 50.

“It’ll be a place where local and regional groups can showcase their talent and share their culture,” Dickson said. “It’s intended to be a low-barrier way to bring an activation to the Expo celebration.”

The integration of Expo 50 with events that already take place in the park during the spring and early summer – including the Bloomsday Run, the Lilac Festival, Juneteenth, Pride and Hoopfest – is intentional, Santangelo said. The idea is not to re-create Expo, but to show how large-scale community events have formed in the same spirit as the audacious undertaking of a world’s fair in Eastern Washington.

“A lot of our Expo effort is just, how can we partner with all these existing events? How do we enhance their events with the idea of Expo?” Santangelo said.

The Lilac Festival has fully embraced the spirit of the world’s fair, said Elisabeth Hooker, co-president of the association. This year’s theme for the annual parade and celebration of Spokane’s youth is “Dare to Dream,” with a logo design made for the Lilac Festival by printmaker and nostalgia master Chris Bovey featuring the iconic Pavilion profile and butterfly statues.

The theme is intended to reflect the several attempts to clear downtown of the railroad trestles and hold a world’s fair, despite challenges that included failed bond votes and a canceled partner exposition in Philadelphia that was to have taken place in 1976, Hooker said.

“We felt that really needed to be celebrated,” she said. “We wanted our theme to reflect this challenge to others.”

King Cole, a civic booster who was brought to Spokane by downtown interests to make Expo ’74 a reality, is credited with overcoming many of those challenges personally in the lead-up to the world’s fair. His daughter, Nancy Cole, was a Lilac princess in 1974, the year the fair opened.

Hal McGlathery, who served as manager of Riverfront Park from 1982 to 1996, said he’s still raising money and hopeful a statue of Cole can be placed in or around the park in time for the Expo ’74 opening.

The effort has hit a “standstill” as park officials await further information about a commemoration, he said.

“We already have some pretty good donations,” McGlathery said. “We think there will be more.”

Programming also is intended to promote the region’s longer-term history, by incorporating the culture, beliefs and practices of the Indigenous tribes that inhabited the Inland Northwest long before white settlers.

When Expo ’74 was held, Congress was four years away from passing a law that protected the religious and spiritual practices of Native tribes on their land. Still, the world’s fair honored local tribes with a traditional totem pole and dances on the island that is today known as “snxw meneɂ” (sin-HOO-men-huh), a Salish name meaning “salmon people.”

“We’ve had a big revitalization in our culture since then,” said Jeff Ferguson, a local photographer and videographer who is also a member of the Spokane Tribe of Indians. He is helping coordinate efforts for Indigenous programming during the anniversary.

Celebration of tribal culture could include a salmon release in the Spokane River, and events that already have been coordinated in areas near the park including Peaceful Valley. Ferguson also mentioned canoe races, performances of songs and spoken-word pieces, and a traditional powwow with members of tribes from the surrounding area.

The salmon release would celebrate another pillar of the planned observations, the one that fueled the expositions put on by governments and private companies alike during the summer of 1974. Santangelo said dozens of local environmental groups had applied to take part in celebrating stewardship of the land and water, a goal exemplified by the city tearing down railroad trestles to make way for Riverfront Park.

Planned events include tree plantings and other ways to celebrate the environmental spirit that drove the world’s fair. Hooker, with the Lilac Festival Association and Downtown Spokane Partnership, said she’s excited to see that original theme of Spokane’s global celebration come alive again.

“I think that’s sort of an under-celebrated impact of Expo ’74,” she said.

Those interested in getting a leg up on planning for this summer’s celebration can sign up for a newsletter on Visit Spokane’s website at visitspokane.com/expo-50, Santangelo said. Organizers are also accepting individual donations through a philanthropic effort known as Club ’74, which is soliciting donations of $74 for people hoping to help support programming during the festivities. The fund drive is being run through the Innovia Foundation, and those interested can also sign up through Visit Spokane.

In the next few weeks, organizers also will begin airing testimonials from Expo ’74 in partnership with KHQ-TV that will become a digital archive for the world’s fair, Santangelo said. The series will feature testimonials from visitors, workers, volunteers and more.

Many had the same thing to say about Expo ’74, Santangelo said.

“They say it was the best summer of their lives,” he said.