This day in history: Festival kicks off at Riverfront Park with bread-baking ceremony; wildfire destroys logging forest in NW Wash., N. Idaho

From 1975: Spokane’s “mini-Earthlife Festival” opened at Riverfront Park, but it might have been more aptly labeled the “Son of Folklife Festival.”

It was held on the site of the former Expo ’74 Folklife Festival, and it was inspired by the success of that Expo offering.

Instead of a ribbon-cutting ceremony, the festival was launched by a bread-baking ceremony, using a loaf baked in a solar oven. The oven baked the loaf at 300 degrees, and was shared among the spectators.

The event was a celebration of a return to the “more basic things in life.” Music was provided by folk singers who had participated in the Expo ’74 Folk Festival.

This event was a prelude to the official Earthlife Festival, which was scheduled to open in August.

From 1925: A raging wildfire destroyed a logging camp and 3 million feet of logs, near Ruby, Washington.

This was only one of many forest fires in northeast Washington and North Idaho. Another logging camp burned 6 miles southeast of Ione, Washington.

Firefighters near Priest River, Idaho, were conducting “trench warfare” in a desperate attempt to surround a fire in the Kaniksu National Forest. They had one more mile of trench to dig after already completing more than 6 miles of ditches.

In British Columbia, officials reported 1,029 fires in the Columbia reserve, compared with only 569 during the entire previous summer.