This day in history: How the Inland Northwest celebrated America’s sesquicentennial and bicentennial

From 1976: The nation was celebrating its bicentennial – “the greatest Fourth of July any of us will ever see,” according to President Gerald Ford – and the Inland Northwest was booming with fireworks, picnics, parades and general frolicking.

“The focus of today’s celebration in Spokane, a city of churchgoers, will be at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist,” said The Spokesman-Review. “Events include concerts by the Spokane Brass Ensemble, a talk by Nathan Pusey, president emeritus of Harvard, a ‘town fair,’ picnic and crafts display. A brass fanfare from the cathedral tower will start the all-day program at 9 a.m.”

Spokane “was one of the few cities of its size which didn’t sponsor a fireworks display.”

In Tekoa, the annual Slippery Gulch Days celebration began on July 3 and “produced one of the best parades ever.” “Spectators were three deep in some places along the six-block parade route,” said the SR.

In Idaho, a “pony express relay competition will run between Pinehurst and Pritchard.”

From 1926: The Fourth of July festivities in Spokane were relatively subdued, because it fell on a Sunday. The big fireworks celebration at Natatorium Park was planned for July 5.

The big news of the day involved matrimony, not fireworks. Spokane’s KHQ radio station hosted a first: a radio wedding, broadcast live.

Robert Hammerschmidt and Ethel May were driving to Spokane when they decided to get married. They were coming to Spokane to see Mr. and Mrs. Louis Wasmer, the managers of KHQ, who then “persuaded them to be married before the microphone.”

“The wedding was much in the manner of other weddings,” said The Spokesman-Review. “Mendelssohn’s Wedding March by an orchestra ushered the couple into the studio where they stood before the microphones. Justice Mann solemnly read the services as if weddings in front of microphones were the most natural thing in the world.”