50 years ago in Expo history: The opera house left after the fair stirred talk of a ‘total cultural series in Spokane’

Now that Expo ’74 had bequeathed an Opera House to Spokane, the question became: “What’s an Opera House without opera?”

Not to mention traveling Broadway shows, touring symphony orchestras and top international attractions.

That was the question that was vexing Mike Kobluk, former Expo entertainment official and now the city’s director of the Opera House and Convention Center.

He said these kinds of expensive attractions needed “some form of subsidization to make up the cost.” Expo ’74 provided that subsidization, but who could do that now? Spokane might be facing a “serious gap at the top.”

Kobluk said that “it does seem to be the major problem we have to overcome to present a total cultural series in Spokane.”

Kobluk believed that a local arts foundation could solve the problem.

From 100 years ago: Bong Chew, a “pioneer Chinese laundryman,” died at Deaconess Hospital after living in Spokane since 1892.

He operated a laundry with his two cousins at 412 W. Sprague.

The Spokane Chronicle reported that he had been “saving his earnings” so that he could rejoin his wife in China, but became ill before he could do so.

He was a leader in Spokane’s Chinese community and had “played a prominent part in the recent Hip Song tong convention held in Spokane recently.”