King Cole

THE REAL WORK BEGINS
Spokane's civic leaders had cleared the way for downtown revitalization and had a theme for the city's centennial, but putting on a world's fair was an entirely different matter. It meant traveling around the United States and the world, trying to convince governments to sponsor pavilions.

Organizers targeted 58 countries, hoping to get 23 of them to exhibit at the fair. King Cole, by now Expo president, was the point man on this effort. Lugging his charts and maps with him, Cole logged over 700,000 miles in under three years. He met his greatest frustration in Europe, where only a French veto stood in the way of a giant European Economic Community pavilion.

The luck wasn't much better with domestic exhibitors. Many people had never heard of Spokane and refused to take the fair seriously. The environmental theme was a big turn-off to many companies, since they were coming under attack for being polluters. Lobbying efforts by powerful U.S. senators Henry Jackson and Warren Magnuson resulted in the Ford Motor Company signing on as the first large commercial exhibitor. After that, other companies fell in line.

Signing up entertainers was also difficult. It wasn't until Liberace agreed to six performances that others began to come aboard. Perhaps the biggest coup was getting John Denver, who was in the Chad Mitchell Trio with Expo entertainment manager Mike Kobluk.

Actually building the fair was the next challenge facing organizers. Demolition on Havermale Island began in June 1972 and as signs in the Great Northern clock tower counted down the days until the fair opening, construction began.

With the exception of the Chinese and Mormon pavilions, all the large buildings were modular and built off-site. This meant that the sections could be assembled quickly once they got to the fairgrounds. Despite its great size, construction of the Soviet Pavilion was completed in under two weeks.

There were some snags—snow and electrical contractor problems delayed the paving, the anchor ring of the U.S. pavilion was the wrong type of steel and needed to be reinforced and dealings with the concessionaire handling the amusement park got ugly—but things went smoothly for the most part.

Workers were painting, planting bushes and laying sod literally to the hour the gates were to open for the first time, but when the time came, the fairgrounds were ready.