It Happened Here: Expo '74 Fifty Years After
May 4, 2024-January 26, 2025
In 1974, Spokane hosted a world’s fair - the smallest city ever to do so. During its six-month run, the fair presented exhibits from ten countries, featured a star-studded event calendar, sponsored three environmental symposiums, and attracted nearly 5.6 million visitors. Fifty years later, Expo ’74 remains one of the single most transformative events in Spokane’s history, radically reshaping its natural and built environment. Expo ’74 ushered in a new era for the city - one centered on urban renewal, commercial growth, and political progress.
This 50th anniversary exhibition revisits the historical roots of Expo ‘74’s environmental theme and the community spirit it kindled and features familiar, nostalgic, and lesser-known stories from the MAC’s archives. Highlights include a bejeweled denim costume that Liberace wore for one of his Expo ’74 performances, Sister Paula Turnbull’s model for Spokane’s now-famous Garbage Goat, and an original Sky Ride gondola.
Expo '74 Memory Share
History is more than just the archiving of facts and data. First-hand accounts of significant events are valuable to those who shared the experience and those who were not there but are interested in learning more. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the event that changed Spokane forever, the MAC is collecting the memories of people who visited Expo '74. What do you remember from Spokane’s World’s Fair? Your personal history will become part of the Expo ’74 Memory Share Collection in the Joel E. Ferris Archives at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture/Eastern Washington State Historical Society.
Watch this Expo '74 Memory Share Video from KREM TV
"It Happened Here" sponsored by
Banner: Expo '74 image: NWC 129 – Dormaier, Jacob #164, Spokane Public Library (Jacob Dormaier Expo '74 Collection)