This day in history: ‘Quiet ever’ rock concert proves concertgoers can respect convention center space; KHQ radio makes move from Seattle to Spokane

From 1975: The Spokane police riot bus was parked in front of the Spokane Convention Center to handle the unruly crowds at the Supertramp concert.

Yet there were no unruly crowds.

This concert was called a “trial run to see if rock concert crowds would treat the new convention center with respect.”

Officials said the crowd of 2,200 “was the quietest ever seen at a rock concert in Spokane.”

Officers standing at the entrances confiscated a couple of bottles of liquor, a six-pack of beer, a bota bag of wine and a baggy of marijuana. The contraband barely filled one-third of a garbage can.

From 1925: Radio station KHQ, “the oldest licensed broadcasting station in the Northwest,” was moving from Seattle to Spokane.

This was a milestone moment for Spokane radio, because the owners announced they would install a “powerful 1,000-watt transmitter” in Spokane. The Seattle station was already “well-known to radio fans the country over,” but now it would have double the power. Under proper conditions, to “will be heard across the continent.”

“Spokane is an ideal field for a station of this size,” Frank Buhlert, one of the owners, said.

The Seattle radio scene was crowded, but Spokane was ripe for a station with this kind of power. He said that they had received letters from “radio men of Spokane asking us to move here,” and after more than a week of investigation, “we are ready to announce the move.”

The owners said they might later change the call letters from KHQ to “something of significance to Spokane.”

That change would never happen. Under the call letters KHQ, it would become a Spokane broadcasting institution, both in radio and later TV.