Statement on Potentially Harmful Content
This website contains digitized records of materials from half a century ago. In some cases, the depiction of certain groups in these materials (either in text or visual form) is outdated, insensitive, or offensive. Some materials also contain slurs, which were still often enshrined as place names in Washington State at the time. For historical accuracy, these depictions and terms have been left intact where they originally appear in Expo materials (e.g. scans from the guidebook or brochures, photos of souvenirs). Item descriptions, interpretive text, and other material created for this site will avoid replicating these terms and depictions whenever possible.
About The Site
This site is a collection of hundreds of items related to Expo ‘74, plus various articles that I have written to give these materials context in terms of Expo, Spokane, and history in general. I named it “Visit Expo ‘74” because this site focuses on the visitor’s perspective of the fair. Others have done a great job writing about how the fair came together and the big-picture stuff, but I’ve always been most interested in what it was like as an on-the-ground experience. Almost everything on this site is something that you would have seen, heard, or touched as a visitor to the Fair, from pavilion brochures and postcards to souvenirs and music.
About Me
My name is Liz Wood, I’m a self-taught Spokane history buff. I moved to Spokane in 1996 as a 13-year-old, and I thought Expo was the most boring thing ever. It was too recent to be appealing as a historical topic, and too old to be actively relevant. In the 1990s, the 1970s seemed like an era that was too cheesy, tacky, and commercial for us to appreciate unironically.
Fast forward a few decades. Buildings from the 1970s are eligible for the Spokane Register of Historic Buildings, and the millennial love for “mid-century modern” has primed our palettes to appreciate the design trends that came directly afterward. You don’t have to hate disco in order to be cool anymore, but the seventies are still in something of a historical limbo nonetheless. For many people, they’re in living memory, and it can be hard to apply the term “history” to an era you lived through. For many others, the seventies aren’t in living memory, but they’re a little too recent to seem interesting. If “the past is a foreign country,” then the seventies are like visiting Canada as somebody from the United States - it’s different, yes, but is it different enough to be worth the effort?
Well, yes! But in both cases, you can’t appreciate the differences from a distance. You need to put yourself in the middle of it and look around. There are several great books and documentaries about Expo ‘74, and I will link them in the Resources section, but most of them take a more “big picture” approach to understanding the fair. My goal with this website is to give more of a ground-level perspective on the fair. If I was walking around on a given day in July of 1974, what music would I hear? What foods would I smell? What sights and sounds would I encounter as I explored each pavilion? What souvenirs would I take home to remember my day at the fair? I hope that the materials on this site will let us imagine some answers to those questions.
Major Sources Used On This Site
Primary Sources
Many of the materials shown on this site were produced for Expo ‘74 and are presented in their original form. These include pavilion brochures, the official guidebook, the official souvenir program, and promotional materials. In most cases, I purchased these second-hand (or third-hand or more) from people who got them at Expo. In some cases, I just used the pics from eBay or Etsy listings without purchasing the item myself - if that is the case, clicking on the images will take you through to the original listing.
Although these original materials are fascinating and are a valuable source of information, please take everything they say with a grain of salt. Expo ‘74 had a lot of moving parts, and sometimes the fair as described in these materials is closer to what the planners thought or hoped would happen than what actually ended up happening.
I have also relied on contemporary articles from newspapers that were covering Expo. These were all accessed through Newspapers.com, and the citations and/or clippings will link back to their location on that site.
You can also find more from original sources that are hosted online:
The National Archives Catalog has some resources related to Expo ‘74, although most are not digitized.
The Washington State Archives has digitized the Spokane City Planning Department’s Expo ‘74 Photographic Collection. As you would expect from a Planning Department, this collection emphasizes the planning for Expo more than the execution.
The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture has quite a bit of Expo ‘74 material. Unfortunately, they have been having technical issues with their online collections search for several years, and you may encounter runtime errors or security certificate warnings. Their digital catalog also only includes a “small fraction” of their holdings.
Secondary Sources: Books
There are three books about Expo ‘74 that you will see quoted extensively on this site. Bill Cotter’s “Spokane’s Expo ‘74 (Images of Modern America)” was published in 2017, Bill Youngs’ “The Fair and the Falls” was published in 1997, and Dawn Bowers’ “Expo 74 World’s Fair Spokane” came out in 1974.
As the “Spokane’s Expo ‘74: Images of Modern America” title suggests, Bill Cotter’s book is full of photographs. However, it’s not just a photo album - each was carefully chosen, and he gives context and information about each, including lots of well-researched detail that does not appear in other sources. His images are not the standard ones that come up when you search for Expo ‘74, and I have deliberately avoided including any of them on this site. (The exceptions are the concept art on page 10, the logo on page 14, and the official site map on page 15., where he and I are both drawing from the same sources.) People curious about Expo ‘74 should definitely check this book out to get a whole new look at the fair. I will note that the publisher also has taken some of these images and turned them into postcards. These are genuine images of Expo ‘74, but are not postcards original to the fair.
“The Fair and the Falls” is long and incredibly densely researched. It is full of fascinating details and stories, and covers everything from the beginning of the fair’s planning through the end of the event. It’s unlikely anybody will ever produce a more comprehensive book about Expo ‘74. If you are ready to take a deep dive, this is the one for you. Do not try to write something about Expo ‘74 without this book. Unlike the Bowers or the Cotter books, it has a very detailed index, so you can head straight to the most relevant parts.
The “Expo 74 World’s Fair Spokane” book by Dawn Bowers almost qualifies as a primary source, as it was printed within months of the fair’s closing. I think it is greatly underrated as a source of information about the fair. Although the photographs are a major draw, there is also quite a bit of text that describes the fair as seen by someone who just watched it happen. Unlike the Cotter book, this one has not been in print for many years and is only available secondhand. As a result, I have been more liberal with sharing images and text from it on this site. However, there is still much more in there than I have shown, and Expo ‘74 enthusiasts should treat themselves to a copy of their own. It is usually only around $20 on used book sites.
Editing of Images
In many cases, images that appear on this site have been edited from their original scanned versions to increase contrast, adjust colors, or remove damage. Nothing has been added, but sometimes I have removed scratches, dust, dirt, wrinkles, and other signs of age. This was particularly necessary for the slides and ViewMaster reels, due to the small size of the images. Here, I have included the unedited scan of the Information Center sticker and the edited version so you can see the difference.
Q&A
Rights and Permissions
By its nature, this website is primarily a collection of materials that other people created. I don’t have any ownership rights over them, and you are free to share them under fair use. However, it did take a fair amount of time and financial investment to acquire, photograph, transcribe, and otherwise digitize all this stuff, so I would appreciate it if you could include a link or a citation to this page so people know where it came from and where to go to see more. (And please don’t take every single bit of it so that there is no “more” to see!)
If you are using the written stuff that I’ve added to contextualize the Expo images, or images that I created for the site, please use cites and quotes like you would for any other original material.
I have Expo stuff to give you/sell you!
You can e-mail me at visitexpo74@gmail.com and we can talk about it! But keep in mind that I’m just a normal person who has a regular job and stores all this stuff in my own small house. If it is already on this website, then I already have it and probably can’t accommodate a duplicate. However, I am definitely interested if you have pavilion-related ephemera (like brochures) that is not represented on this site.
How do I contact you with other inquiries?
Send an e-mail to visitexpo74@gmail.com and give me a while to respond, I usually check it once a week.
Directory of Site Content
Pavilions
Australia Pavilion
Informational and Promotional Materials
Season Ticket Application Forms (Adult, Child)
Laminated Season Passes (Adult, Child)
Single-Day Ticket
After-Hours Admission Tickets
Adult Ride Tickets
News Pass
Temporary Official Identification
Official Identification