50 years ago in Expo history: The fair was proving popular with out-of-towners, even before school let out

Crowds at Expo ’74 continued to surpass expectations, totaling about 143,392 over the fair’s first three days.

Officials were surprised at another statistic: Most of the visitors on the third day were from out of town.

Organizers had assumed that most of the visitors in May, before schools were out, would be locals. But a random sample showed that only two of the 30 people surveyed were from Spokane.

Six were young people from Vancouver, Washington, who had arrived by bus after a backpacking trip to Jackson Hole. Other visitors had driven in from Montana, Oregon, Minnesota and New York. Several were in Spokane for the Washington State Carpenters convention.

The man who conducted the survey said the respondents were all enjoying themselves, and the “only complaints were tired feet.”

The only two Spokane residents in the survey were teenage girls with season passes.

The Spokane Chronicle also noted that visitors were enjoying not just the big pavilions, but the riverfront location itself – “the ducks floating peacefully in the south channel of the river, or the small colorful flowers planted everywhere.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

558: In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapses. Emperor Justinian I immediately orders the dome rebuilt.

1867: Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patents dynamite in England, the first of three patents he would receive for the explosive material.