50 years ago in Expo history: The fair was so popular that one official called it the ‘model’ for other cities

John W. Warner, former Secretary of the Navy, dedicated the U.S. Bicentennial Plaza at Expo ’74, and declared that it should be “the springboard, the model” for other cities to emulate.

Warner was the national administrator of the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, which was gearing up for celebrations over the next two years.

The plaza displayed the names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence on a mirrored-metal wall.

In other Expo news, the Soviet Union Pavilion added a fourth theater, because the other three theaters were drawing such big crowds. The theater was showing scientific or “semi-scientific” films about the environment.

From 100 years ago: Spokane was awarded a mobile unit of the Shriners Hospital for children, the culmination of a long campaign to bring the hospital to the city.

The location was to be determined, but it would probably be located in an existing wing at either St. Luke’s Hospital or Deaconess Hospital. The meaning of “mobile unit” was undefined, but it would clearly be a substantial presence, with a chief surgeon, four nurses, a brace maker, a physical therapist and all of the apparatuses necessary for operations.

The establishment of a mobile unit “ultimately means the establishment of a hospital for Spokane,” a jubilant Spokane Shriner official said.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1851: Anti-slavery novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe is first published in serial form in “The National Era.”