This day in history: Spokane Convention Center opened with fanfare. Deaconess nursing students defied rules by cutting hair

From 1975: About 2,000 people showed up for a dual civic celebration: the opening of Riverpark Center (known today as the Spokane Convention Center) and the official bestowing of the All-American City Award.

These two accomplishments were linked, because Spokane won the All-American City Award in part because of its Expo ’74 transformation of the downtown riverfront. The convention center was part of that transformation.

Heavyweight civic leaders from the West Side congratulated Spokane for its accomplishments.

“You did it,” said Seattle’s James R. (Jim) Ellis, president of the National Municipal League. “You recaptured a river for your people, you made a world’s fair happen, and you set a spirit for the nation with your can-do attitude.”

Gov. Daniel J. Evans presented the symbolic keys to the convention center to Spokane Mayor David H. Rodgers. Evans good-naturedly pointed out that the state, which funded the center, still technically owned it, but that the city would be its “custodian” until ownership reverted to the city.

From 1925: About 15 nursing students at Deaconess Hospital defied tradition “by having their hair bobbed in approved modern fashion.”

They were “rebelling against what they considered to be an arbitrary and old-maidish rule” which required long hair.

The hospital administration was not pleased. The superintendent of nurses said “they deliberately violated the rules of the hospital and will have to suffer the consequences.”

However, the consequences were probably not going to be severe. The hospital superintendent did not consider it “a serious thing,” and said they would not be punished beyond “receiving marks against their course records.”

The student nurses themselves said they felt “about 15 years younger.”