50 years ago in Expo history: The fair’s success ushered in the beginnings of what would become Riverfront Park

A Spokesman-Review editorial commended the Park Board and Expo ’74 officials for taking concrete steps toward making the Expo site into “a permanent river front park.”

The editorial noted that for most people, Expo was an “end in itself.” Yet Expo was just the beginning. There was a “continuing challenge to secure the area that has been opened up against future retrogression.”

“The planning and activity now underway are most gratifying as indicators that the community is not sitting back and congratulating itself on Expo and letting it end at that,” the S-R editors wrote.

In other Expo news, a 19-year-old was arrested after he tried to enter the fairgrounds without paying. A security guard tried to detain him, but the suspect assaulted the guard.

The man was booked into jail on a third-degree assault charge.

Elsewhere at Expo, Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman presented Spokane with a gift on Seattle Day at the fair. He gave Spokane a ceramic sculpture depicting 150 trout swimming through a waterfall.

Uhlman joked that they could replace the 1,974 trout released into the river on the fair’s opening day, which promptly “swam away.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1521: Edict of Worms outlaws Martin Luther and his followers.

1787: Constitutional convention opens at Philadelphia with George Washington presiding.

1961: President John F. Kennedy announces U.S. goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade.

1977: First “Star Wars” movie premiers.