50 years ago in Expo history: The vigilant teenage litter patrol at the fair impressed, and Vermont Day made headlines

How did Expo ’74 live up to its “fresh new environment” credo?

When it came to litter on the fairgrounds, it employed an army of high school and college students who pounced on every stray piece of trash.

One Spokane Chronicle editor noticed a tiny piece of trash, “perhaps an inch across.” Before she could bend down and pick it up, “a youth races from behind, snaps the offending scrap from the grass and whisks it into a bag over his arm.”

A visitor was hard-pressed to find a “match cover, candy wrapper or cigarette butt” when the litter patrol was hard at work.

In other Expo news, it was Vermont Day at the fair. Vermont Gov. Thomas P. Salmon gave a speech in which he lauded Spokane for bringing together “the world’s two greatest assets, the people and the environment.”

From 100 years ago: Another young critter was turning heads in Spokane, 50 years before Expo.

F.C. Haegel had a pet bear cub who rode around in his auto “much the same as other people carry their dogs.”

“Wherever the auto stops the cub is the center of attention,” the Chronicle reported.

The cub was captured after its mother was killed by a forest ranger in Montana.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1431: 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal in Roeun, France.

1883: Stampede caused by a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge was going to collapse kills 12.