American Realities with Bill Youngs
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      • Volume One >
        • The Native Americans
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      • Additional Essays >
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    • The Fair and the Falls >
      • Part I: Possessing the Falls >
        • Chapter One: James Glover: Purchasing the Falls
        • Chapter Two: Waiting for the Indians
        • Chapter Three: Harnessing the Falls
        • Chapter Four: "The World's Fair of the Northwest"
        • Chapter Five: The City Beside the Falls
      • Part II: Rediscovering the Falls >
        • Chapter Six: The Twilight of Old Spokane
        • Chapter Seven: Urban Blight and Urban Renewal
        • Chapter Eight: King Cole and The Heart of a City
        • Chapter Nine: Visualizing a World's Fair
      • Part III Redesigning the Falls >
        • Chapter Ten: From Spokane to Paris >
          • Tom Foley's Turn
        • Chapter Eleven: Wooing the Foreign Exhibitors
        • Chapter Twelve: Wooing the Domestic Exhibitors
        • Chapter Thirteen: The Environmental Debate
        • Chapter Fourteen: Building the Fair
        • Chapter Fifteen: Marketing, Money, and Management
      • Part IV: The Fair by the Falls >
        • Chapter Sixteen: Opening Day
        • Chapter Seventeen: A Mingling of Peoples
        • Chapter Eighteen: Days at the Fair
        • Chapter Nineteen: The Press of New Ideas
        • Chapter Twenty: The Final Tally
      • Part V: An American Environment >
        • Chapter Twenty-One: Spokane Falls, An American Environment
      • The Fair and the Falls Map

  The Fair and the Falls: Spokane's Expo '74: Transforming an American Environment

Picture
In the 1970s, Spokane, Washington became the smallest city ever to host a world's fair. The fair was dedicated to the theme of environmentalism and was itself an environmental triumph. The heart of the fair was on two islands in the Spokane River beside the thundering falls at the core of downtown Spokane.

When James Glover, the "Father of Spokane," first settled near this site in 1873, the setting was one of the most beautiful in the West. Over the years, the early settlers surrounded the falls with saw mills, flour mills, bridges, railway depots, warehouses, and other urban "improvements." In the process, they built a city but lost track of their river. Many Spokanites would later admit, "We'd forgotten it was there."

During the 1950s and 1960s Spokane suffered from the urban blight common to many American cities at the time. In order to restore the downtown, Spokanites considered a number of plans and eventually decided to host a world's fair -- a gigantic task for a small city. The fairgrounds were built, exhibitors and tourists came to Spokane from throughout the world, and the blighted region by the falls was transformed into a magnificent park.

In autumn 1996, Eastern Washington University Press published a history of these events. The Fair and the Falls is the most thorough account of any American exposition since World War II. The author, prize-winning historian J. William T. Youngs, and his student assistants conducted hundreds of interviews and read thousands of documents to prepare the text.

The Fair and the Falls is a narrative history of a place, Spokane Falls, and an event, Expo '74.  This web site provides information about the book and its characters.



Table of Contents


Part I: Possessing the Falls

     Chapter One: James Glover: Purchasing the Falls 

     Chapter Two: Waiting for the Indians
 

     Chapter Three: Harnessing the Falls 

     Chapter Four: "The World's Fair of the Northwest"

     Chapter Five: The City Beside the Falls



Part II: Rediscovering the Falls

     Chapter Six: The Twilight of Old Spokane 

     Chapter Seven: Urban Blight and Urban Renewal 

     Chapter Eight: King Cole and The Heart of a City 

     Chapter Nine: Visualizing a World's Fair


Part III: Redesigning the Falls

     Chapter Ten: From Spokane to Paris 

     Chapter Eleven: Wooing the Foreign Exhibitors 

     Chapter Twelve: Wooing the Domestic Exhibitors 

     Chapter Thirteen: The Environmental Debate 

     Chapter Fourteen: Building the Fair 

     Chapter Fifteen: Marketing, Money, and Management



Part IV: The Fair by the Falls

     Chapter Sixteen: Opening Day 

     Chapter Seventeen: A Mingling of Peoples 

     Chapter Eighteen: Days at the Fair 

     Chapter Nineteen: The Press of New Ideas 

     Chapter Twenty: The Final Tally



Part V: An American Environment

     Chapter Twenty-One: Spokane Falls, An American Environment