May 18th-May 24th: A Wandering Minstrel, A Daredevil, And A New Ferris Wheel

Liz Wood

Liz Wood

— 11 min read
May 18th-May 24th: A Wandering Minstrel, A Daredevil, And A New Ferris Wheel

This week at Expo '74, the Folklife Festival featured "American Heritage Week." The Spokesman-Review did a nice profile on Folklife's "wandering minstrel," one Utah Phillips.(1). In addition to his music, Phillips (in his persona as wily Western trader Nathan Starbuck) provided one of the memorable experiences noted by Calvin Trillin in his New Yorker article about Expo '74, "Thoughts of a Fair-Trotter":

He had a way of making his own objects sound interesting ("That's a fine marble. Very old marble. A real good marble.") and making whatever was offered sound so worthless that its owner often looked embarrassed about having brought it up. I think if someone had shown up with an 1832 New England whirligig stolen from the Museum of American Folk Art, Starbuck would have looked at it morosely and said, "All anyone brings me to trade anymore is whirligigs."
Evelyn Roth and Utah Phillips at Expo '74, by way of the Spokesman-Review. Evelyn Roth was a Canadian artist who knitted things (including hats such as Phillips is modeling) out of recycled videotape.

I'm only sharing a selection of the things happening at Expo '74 each week, trying to highlight the most unique or notable. The full roster for any given day is too packed to cover each individual group, occasion, and performance. For a representative example, see this run-down for May 22nd. Wow!

Line-up for Wednesday, May 22nd, 1974.

THE WEEK'S EVENTS

Ticket booths opened an hour early on Saturday, May 18th to allow fair-goers to purchase their tickets before going to the Lilac Parade.(2) Officials involved with the Lilac Festival believed that Expo '74 increased attendance at the festival and vice versa, with Saturday's Expo crowd being the largest since opening day.(3)

That same day, daredevil Terry Brauner attempted to go over the falls on a raft made from three inner tubes roped together. He made it over the upper falls, but his stunt was derailed when his raft got caught in a whirlpool near the Expo headquarters. He was rescued before sustaining more than minor injuries. His escapade was completely unofficial and unapproved - Expo spokesman Chuck Aly described it as "a hazardous and folly-ridden venture." (4).

Spokesman-Review, May 19, 1974.

On Sunday, May 19th, Gonzaga University hosted an environmental symposium titled "Dilemma Facing Humanity."(5) Around 150 people attended, many of whom were apparently just passing through out of curiosity - a later editorial in the Spokesman-Review criticized the community's lack of interest in learning about the environmental topics that Expo ostensibly celebrated.(6) Senator Henry M. Jackson, D-Washington, made his first visit to Expo '74 on this day.(7)

Monday, May 20th was Vancouver Festival Day at the fair. Oral Roberts and company were in the midst of several days of filming for a TV special to air in September.(8) On Tuesday, May 21st, the newspaper reported that the Bavarian Beer Garden had recently switched to serving beer in soft plastic cups, after losing 1300 glass steins in the first weeks of the fair to opportunistic drinkers seeking a free souvenir. The paper lamented that "it just ain't the same."(9) A large Ferris wheel arrived to replace the smaller stand-in wheel at the midway. (10)

On Wednesday, May 22nd, a dozen lifejackets were placed along the "forebay channel" (the south channel between Havermale Island and the south bank) of the river in case a water rescue was needed. An Expo spokesman said that they were not placed elsewhere along the river because they "wouldn't be much good."(11) I am not sure if this meant that people who fell into the river elsewhere could be rescued without the help of lifejackets, or if it meant that people who fell into the river elsewhere were beyond any help that lifejackets could provide.

On the evening of Thursday, May 23rd, the Opera House saw its first opera proper: the Seattle Opera Association and the Spokane Symphony Orchestra presented a double bill of "I Pagliacci" and "Gianni Schicchi."(12)

Friday, May 24th was Seattle Festival Day. Seattle's mayor, Wes Uhlman, met with Spokane Mayor David Rodgers to present Spokane with several gifts: a replica flag from the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition, a banner from the Century 21 exposition, and a rainbow trout sculpture created by California artist Joanna Hayakawa.(13) The evening's entertainment was Rolf Harris, billed as "The 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport' Man."

A Spokesman-Review ad for the Australian Country Music Show.

The Spokesman-Review reported that a "Californian gentleman" had recently asked a Spokanite, "How did you make that river for the fair?"(14) While he was assured that the river was real and naturally-occurring, he was more right than he knew. Rediscovering the river and making it the centerpiece of Expo '74 took quite a bit of work. For more, I recommend checking out the recent documentary from KSPS, PBS Public Television: "Meet Me At The River: Expo/50." You might even see me chirping away about Expo '74 souvenirs toward the end.

ATTENDANCE

As of close-of-business on May 24th, Expo '74 attendance to date was 580,659.(15)

Cartoon from the Spokesman-Review, May 18, 1974.

PAVILION/EXHIBIT HIGHLIGHT: NORTHWEST ORIENT

Many photos of Expo '74 featured the bright red sails of a Chinese junk, standing out boldly against the blue sky and water. While you might assume that the boat was connected with one of the Asian nations exhibiting at the fair, it actually belonged to one of the commercial exhibitors, the Minnesota-based Northwest Orient Airlines.

According to Wikipedia, "The English word 'junk' comes from Portuguese junco from Javanese jong and ultimately from Min Chinese jüng (船, 'boat; ship')."

Northwest Orient Airlines began life as simply Northwest Airlines in 1926, adding the “Orient” when it became a primary airline for flights from the United States to Asia. It dropped “Orient” from its branding again in 1986 and merged into Delta Airlines in 2010.

The junk that appeared at Expo '74 was eight years old and from Hong Kong.(16) Northwest Orient purchased it for the fair and had it transported thousands of miles to the fair, mostly in the holds of larger ships and on trucks. As well as being fitted with the bold red sails, the interior of the 48-foot-long boat was decorated in "contemporary Chinese character."

Three "stewardesses" and a "male cabin attendant" greeted all those who came aboard. One of the stewardesses was a young woman from Spokane, Sandy Wong. Picture from Spokesman Review.
I purchased this slide on eBay. The seller’s mother (name unknown) is standing on the Northwest Orient junk and holding the same paper hat shown below.
These were apparently one of the most sought-after souvenirs at the fair. The attendants on Northwest Orient's junk began to ration them in July, giving them away to only 1,250 of the exhibit's 6,000 visitors each day.

SOUVENIR OF THE WEEK

This wasn't a souvenir in the traditional sense, but it's one of my favorite pieces in my Expo collection. I don't know what its official title is, but I generally refer to it as the lithograph book. It is from 1973 and features poems and descriptions of plans for Expo 74, interleaved with vellum pages featuring Irwin Caplan's colorful paintings of the fair. (More about Irwin Caplan as an artist and an Expo '74 contributor here.) Caplan and his team created a full suite of cheerful, colorful images that were widely used in promotional materials. These pieces combine his efficient cartoon line art style with vivid washes of bright color.

Most Caplan art that would appear throughout Expo is cropped or modified from the images in this booklet. This art was put on every type of souvenir, used in promotional materials, and cropped into postcards. Some examples of the Caplan art in use appear in below. Note that the gondola ride was generally titled “Skyway Safari” and the Japanese Garden was labeled as “Oriental Garden” for unknown reasons. The Caplan images were widely bootlegged, and some of these items may not represent an officially licensed use of the art. (You can see these in more detail on the Caplan art page on my site.)

Some of my favorite Expo materials are those that depict the fair as it never was. Produced in advance of most fair materials (the back page bears a 1973 copyright), this booklet illustrates some aspects of the fair that would change or disappear by the time of the actual event.

This booklet came out after the exterior design of the U.S. Pavilion had changed to the form we know today, but the interior would still undergo major revisions. This art shows the garden exhibit that was originally planned for inside the U.S. pavilion.
The vaguely technological thing with circular buttons in the background of this image is probably the “Environmental Communications Center,” a concept that did not survive to the actual construction phase.
The only non-U.S. nations mentioned in this booklet as participating in Expo ‘74 are Taiwan, Canada, the USSR, and Japan. Some aspects of the art hint at other national participants that may have been hoped for but were never realized, such as the Czechoslovakian flag in the flag display or the sombrero-wearing, presumably Mexican guitar player who appears on multiple pages. Although their nations did not participate officially, Mexico was represented through Plaza Mexicana and many Czechoslovakian artists contributed to the fair, notably the Kinoautomat Decision Cinema and the shadow puppets in the Iran Pavilion.
The art of this booklet depicted the high-soaring version of the fairground gondolas that was typical of this era of Expo '74 design. While the real fair would have two separate "sky ride" attractions - the enclosed blue gondola cars that went over the falls and the open chairs of the A&W Sky Float that went over the fairgrounds - early concept art often showed one continuous enclosed gondola system traveling across the entire length of the fairgrounds as well as over the falls. In this art, the cars are typically red or multicolored and are traveling at least as high as the top of the clock tower. The actual Sky Float was much closer to the ground.
Other than the color of the cars, the “Ride Over The Falls” section of the gondolas is a reasonably accurate representation of what was eventually present at the fair. While the U.S. Pavilion would ultimately become the legacy structure of Expo ‘74, this booklet emphasizes the gondola ride over the falls as the fair’s “center of climactic wonder.”
Note that this depiction of the Washington State Pavilion has stairs offset from the final build, a broad wooden bridge, and an in-river fountain at approximately the place where the floating stage would be constructed. The in-river fountain, despite never being built, appears in a truly surprising amount of depictions of this pavilion thanks to the influence of the Caplan art.
An early concept for the Bell Telephone Systems Pavilion was circular and had yellow spokes radiating across a white dome (or white spokes across a yellow dome in some versions). Like the in-river fountain, this nonexistent element of the fair had surprising longevity in visual depictions.

You can check out a scan of the full booklet and some more examples of merchandise and postcards using this art here. And now that you know what Caplan's art looks like, you'll be able to notice how ubiquitous it is when we talk about Expo '74!

NEXT WEEK

The circus comes to town, and so does Bob Hope. "I know this is Crosby's home town... tomorrow I'm going over to see the manger he was born in."

Footnotes/References

  1. Cross, Alden. (May 21, 1974). "Minstrel Adds To Folklife Atmosphere." Spokesman-Review, p. 34. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-minstrel-adds-to-fo/147321275/
  2. "Ticket Sales Begin Early For Fair-Goers." (May 18, 1974). Spokane Chronicle, p. 1. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/spokane-chronicle-ticket-sales-begin-ear/147313723/
  3. "Crowd Of 40,000 Attracted To Expo." (May 19, 1974). Spokesman-Review, p. 16. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-crowd-of-40000-att/146997971/
  4. Reid, David W. (May 19, 1974). "Daredevil Says He's Lucky." Spokesman-Review, p. 9. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-daredevil-says-hes/147319541/
  5. Swigard, Kent. (May 20, 1974). "First Expo Environmental Symposium Opens." Spokesman-Review, p. 7. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-first-expo-environm/147322034/
  6. "Symposia Not Properly Attended." (May 23, 1974). Spokesman-Review, p. 4. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-symposia-not-proper/147323078/
  7. Harper, Robert. (May 20, 1974). "Solon Urges Speedy Watergate Conclusion." Spokesman-Review, p. 6. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-symposia-not-proper/147323078/
  8. Barnes, Hazel. (May 22, 1974). "Faith Held In Today's Youth." Spokesman-Review, p. 46. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/spokane-chronicle-faith-held-in-todays/147642964/
  9. "Don't Expect A Neat Looking Munich Oktoberfest Stein." (May 21, 1974). Spokesman-Review, p. 1. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-dont-expect-a-neat/147321402/
  10. "Wheel Arrives." (May 22, 1974). Spokane Chronicle, p. 31. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/spokane-chronicle-wheel-arrives/147321910/
  11. "Lifesavers." (May 22, 1974). Spokesman-Review, p. 3. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-lifesavers/147639528/
  12. "Impressive Cast To Sing In Opera 'Double Bill'." (May 21, 1974). Spokesman-Review, p. 1, 15. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-impressive-cast-to/147643343/
  13. Powers, Dorothy R. (May 25, 1974.) "Seattle's Festival At Expo Marked By Special Gifts." Spokesman-Review, p. 3, 6. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-seattles-festival/147324065/
  14. "No, The River Is Real." (May 24, 1974). Spokesman-Review, p. 1. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-no-the-river-is-re/147323989/
  15. "First Of Topical Symposia, More Fireworks Due Expo." (May 25, 1974). Spokane Chronicle, p. 1. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/spokane-chronicle-first-of-topical-sympo/147642029/
  16. Gibbs, Joann. (April 2, 1974). "Chinese Junk Brings Orient To Spokane." Spokane Chronicle, p. 2. Via Newspapers.com: https://www.newspapers.com/article/spokane-chronicle-chinese-junk-brings-or/147640559/

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