50 years ago in Expo history: Months spent on the roof of a downtown building

Jinnie Cox, 26, was watching over Expo ’74 from a high, lonely perch – a 40-foot-high crow’s nest from a ship, set up on the roof of a downtown building. And she planned to stay there for two or three months.

“Jinnie said her lofty perch gives her an entirely different perspective on people and things,” the Spokane Chronicle wrote. “It is so small she cannot lie down, so must sleep curled up or sitting down.”

Why was she doing it?

No, she’s not getting paid for it, she just wants to set a world record for this sort of thing, “a record which I’m going to make hard for someone else to break, ” she told the Chronicle.

She sent her laundry down by rope in a duffel bag, collected by her husband, a civilian employee at Fairchild Air Force Base. Her meals were sent up by pulley, too.

She was passing the time by watching the fairgrounds and reading the Bible.

From 100 years ago: The tiny village of Wayside, 6 miles southwest of Deer Park, was “practically wiped out” in a fire that began in a garage.

The Methodist Church and parsonage were destroyed, along with the Wayside Store and several homes. Only the Odd Fellows Hall and two homes were left standing.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1374: A sudden outbreak of St. John’s Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.