50 years ago in Expo history: Gordon Lightfoot dazzled at the fair, as did the Garbage Goat for one visiting toddler
The Spokane Chronicle ran a photo of Kristen Spakes, 3, of Denver, with one of Expo ’74’s enduring landmarks: the garbage-eating goat.
Kristen wore an expression of delight as the metal-sculpture goat sucked the litter from her hand via a hidden vacuum.
“A tape-recorded message invites children to deposit their trash,” the caption reads. “The popular device was designed by Sister Paula Turnbull.”
In other Expo news, Margie Williams, a Cayuse tribe member from Pendleton, Oregon, was “crowned queen of the second annual Speelya Days Powwow.”
The powwow was an official event of Native American Earth, the Expo ’74 Indian area of the fair. Singers and dancers from as far away at Utah and Oklahoma had gathered at Expo for the event.
At the Opera House, Gordon Lightfoot earned stellar reviews for his two sold-out performances. The Spokesman-Review critic called him a “master at conjuring up sights, sounds and situations, but most of all, feelings.”
The Chronicle reviewer noted that the opening act, Casey Kelly, had “the dubious distinction of belching the first four-letter expletive deleted in the new Opera House and received mixed audience reaction to his off-color, plagiarized jokes.”
Also on this day
(From onthisday.com)
1804: Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of France by the French senate.
1980: Eruption of Mount St. Helens triggers largest landslide in history, killing 57 people and causing more than $1 billion in damages.