50 years in Expo history: A fair about environmentalism, but shunned by environmentalists?

Environmental groups were ambivalent, at best, about Expo ’74, despite the fair’s environmental theme.

The Spokane chapter of Zero Population Growth took a vote and declined to participate. The president criticized the way environmental groups had been treated. Some members “feel so strongly that they’re not going to attend at all,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported.

The Sierra Club was still “quite neutral” about Expo, said a local chapter officers.

“We feel it’s doing a good job of cleaning up the city,” she said, but added that not much had been done to actually clean up air and water.

In response, Expo officials announced they would give environmental groups free exhibit space in the Environmental Symposia Center, to be shared on a rotating basis. The Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society were pondering that offer. A Washington Environmental Council official noted that it was “impossible to put something of quality together” at this late date.

The local Audubon Society chapter had previously complained that the Expo board had “never wanted us to participate with anything that cost less than three-quarters of a million dollars.”

From 100 years ago: The Spokane and Seattle chambers of commerce both predicted that 1924 would be “the biggest tourist year in the history of the Pacific Northwest.”

They based this prediction on the number of queries pouring in to the tourist committees and tourist bureaus. Publicity campaigns aimed at California and the East appeared to be working

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