50 years ago in Expo history: Arguably the city’s biggest World’s Fair cheerleader shared his passion in a letter to the editor

Tom Harding, an Expo Youth Task Force member and “all-around Expo-citer,” wrote a letter to the editor of The Spokesman-Review praising the paper’s recent “Expo and Beyond” article.

“As an avid collector of Expo articles … it adds richly to my holdings,” he wrote.

It was not hard to find Expo doubters, but Harding represented a probably much larger contingent of boosters who were proud of Spokane’s gumption in becoming the smallest city to host a World’s Fair.

“It gives me great pride to look and see and know what a fantastic job our city is undertaking,” he wrote. “The community effort is overwhelming. … The 250,000 people living here in metropolitan Spokane deserve praise and should be commended for their devotion to making the city more beautiful than it already is.”

From 100 years ago: Spokane’s 1924 Twelfth Night celebration was supposed to include a huge bonfire of discarded Christmas trees at Glover Field.

There was a bonfire, all right, but not on the 12th night after Christmas. One night early, some boys had sneaked into the park and set fire to the entire pile of 500-plus trees.

“This morning I went to Glover Field to make the final arrangements for the ceremony, and found nothing but a pile of ashes,” the event’s chairman said.

Those who witnessed the premature fire said it burned “real good.”

The chairman said, “We’ll try again next year.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1949: President Harry Truman labels his administration the “Fair Deal.”