tenants and visitors to contribute to telling the story. is it possible to repurpose the same policies. used to disenfranchise these neighborhoods to restore and commemorate what we lost. so, we look at restoring this notion of pavilions that work reminiscent of the churches that were destroyed at the time. for coming in and looking at homes that were destroyed at the time. coming into the landscape and offering maps of what where it there. every person would stand on a particular spot at that site, it is hallowed ground.

the answer for me is it is possible. we believe if we persist and yes if we persist what we can imagine about development and moving forward with architecture and collaboration with its occasions like you, developers and all the others institutions that i mentioned. the unimaginable is possible. thank you very much for your time. [applause] >> interested in american history tv? schedule, preview upcoming programs and watch archival films and more. american history tv at www.c-span.org/history.

>> all we can, american history tv is featuring spokane, washington. staff recently visited many sites showcasing its history. located in the eastern part of the state, about 280 miles from seattle, the city is home to .bout 200,000 people onrn more every weekend here american history tv. >> expo 74 took place, believe it or not, and 1974, and it is time the was at that smallest city in the world ever to host a world's fair. the first fair to use the environment as a team. 1962, thed close on

first earth day. there is a great consciousness around the world about environmentalism, and became the sessionrguably the of of expo 74, to try to create a world fair and a series of to aiors they corresponded better consciousness of the environment. by now, we in the archive section of the northwest museum of arts and culture in spokane. from a few of the records expo 74 are here. what were looking at right here is a very large map. it's one of what was called birdseye maps that were done very often, ironically before people went up in airplanes, they had these maps that put you in your imagination above the city and they were worked out to show the buildings in the city. what you can see here is the

spokane river flowing from on my right, would be idaho, flowing into spokane in 1890. can see a number of bridges across it. no railroad trestles. the railroads would come in later. -- rightld soon be across this part of the river. this is basically the region where this whole story takes place. so bear in mind, that in 1960 say, this is what spokane looks like. the river is essentially forgotten. at one point, the clutter was

progress. we have trains coming in, hooray, we have mills and they are making us a lot of money. but a variety of things happened that made that change. one of them was the inspector of the shopping center. a big shopping center went up north of spokane and it's still there today, north town. with that, a lot of commerce moved out of downtown spokane to the outside. if you look at spokane in 1930 or 40, photographs of the street looks like midtown manhattan. the streets were crowded. but by 1960, most of that trade had moved to the shopping center. the streets were almost deserted, commerce was failing. that was really what started people thinking about urban renewal, about somehow making the downtown more attractive. there was a series of meetings of various kinds, people together a variety of ideas. but it didn't get much past ideas. yes, they wanted to renew downtown. a few people said, that river is pretty, maybe we can make

something out of that that people would want to come down and see it. but one of the problems was, though there was a lot of hacking for this, there was nobody really to work on it day by day. and at that point, in the late 1960's, spokane did a nationwide search and hired, from california, a man named leave it or not, king cole. naturally all the newspapers picked up the cliche and said he was a very old soul and get that out of the way. king cole was the real deal. he liked to say spoke and needed a warrior, not a warrior with the sword, but a worrier. 18 hours a day. cole did that. he gathered people together, got

people ideas, looked at various possibilities. he and others came up with the idea of the world fair, which in a town the size of spokane, 180,000 people, that was very pretentious because world fares were typically new york or even seattle would have been considered a small city to have had a world fair. it had one in 1962. but he and spokane and ultimately olympia, washington, the capital, worked on it and worked on it a lot. king cole made a number of trips to paris where the center for world fares exists and began exploring with them the idea of this little city in the west having this world fair. one of the attractions to the fair was the fact of the falls, bringing people to the place where they had the falls in the fair.

you go to ford or general motors and you want them to exhibit expo 74. there is a town not that well known. we call it spokane, rhymes with can. at the time, most people say spo-kane, but it's spokane. the river falls would be spectacular. like any western river fed by mountains and a snowmelt from mountains, the spokane river is most spectacular in the spring when the water is running. at one point, they had industrialists from detroit, ford and general motors, and representatives higher up of those companies. they wanted to persuade them that this would be a good place for a world's fair. the trouble was, it was august or september and the water had gone down to just a trickle going to the falls.

there are several up river dams and naturally, the power company was interested in seeing this fair happen and they arranged to cut off the flow of the river entirely for a period of time while king cole and others in spokane had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the side of the falls. only the carefully set them down to where they would not be looking at the river. then at a predetermined time, say 1:00, king cole said, have you seen our river? they would say, no, no, no. he would say, let's go look. it would walk over to the windows and there are the falls crashing through the center of the city. the people were very impressed by it.

they went back to their hotel, 20 minutes later, the power company shut off the river so to speak, turned off the faucet. but they made their case very well. in addition to getting corporations to exhibit and kodak, for example, would be another one that came of it there was the more important question of support by the state, the nation, and other countries around the world. washington state naturally was enthusiastic it would be in their state and they built a pavilion which became basically a concert hall opera house that is still standing beside the river. and along the way, we were lining up other countries around the world, japan for example cayman, as did australia, germany, a variety of other countries. iran. but the clincher for spokane, was that for the first time since before world war ii, the

soviet union exhibited at an american world's fair. not only did they come to spokane, but they came in force. they build a huge pavilion, three theaters within the pavilion. the irony of that is, spokane was and is somewhat more conservative, say than other parts of the country and affection for communism in the soviet union was not necessarily second nature to folks in spokane. but on the one hand, they might be anti-soviet, but on the other hand, they were very pro-soviet and very grateful that so much had been done for our worlds fair. the opening of the fair came in early may of 1974. and about 80,000 people came to

that and richard nixon, president and said, gave the opening speech. -- president nixon, gave the opening speech. >> it is a pleasure to be here on this sparkling opening day to speak about what this particular occasion means, not only for now, and the days ahead in the summer where i hope hundreds of thousands and maybe millions will come to see it. but down on the pages of history perhaps to the year 2000, 25 years from now, when we celebrate a new year's that comes once in a thousand years. and when we look back to see what we did now to make that a new year that was not only the greatest new year for america, but for every nation in the world. today we speak of the environment in terms as we

should of cleaning up the air and the water, of a legacy of parks, of all of those other things that have to do with making our cities and our towns and our countryside more beautiful. for our children and those that follow us. another aspect of environment that occurs to each of us, of course, is what this magnificent expo is going to leave as a legacy. i trust some of these beautiful buildings, it will leave 100 acre parks in the heart of the city of spokane, which was once a blighted area. these will be physical monuments to what you, the citizens of spokane and the state of washington have done in putting on expo 74.

bill: this was a very awkward time for president next in. nixon.sident the watergate scandal had been going on for more than a year at this point and fairly recently, the tapes had been discovered that really ended up putting the nail in his coffin in terms of ending his presidency. but that was opening day and the fair then went on as fares did then. i think it is still a rule that a fair runs for six months normally. during that time, about 5 million people came to see the world's fair, which is not a large number in terms of say, something like the huge shanghai world's fair of 2010, where i believe 80 million people came. but if you take the population of shanghai of 20 million and the publishing of spokane at

about 200,000, a much higher proportion of people came to the spokane fair, both from spokane and other parts of the world. so a small fair, but in its way, tremendously successful. all of this, of course, as of 2017, it will be 43 years ago and a lot has happened at that site since then. the park has been developed year-by-year. initially, it took about two years to get the buildings out and to put in grass and it is mainly now a grassy space. more money now, i believe in the neighborhood of $60 million has gone into refurbishing the parks further. so not only was the fair beneficial immediately in terms

of transforming downtown spokane, but now the better part of 50 years later, there is still momentum that began their that is part of the spirit of that place, the spirit of the place of the middle of spokane falls. >> learn more about o'kane and other stops on our tour at /citiestour.rg we continue now with our look at the history of spokane. >> american history tv is on c-span3 every weekend, featuring museum tours, archival films, and programs on the presidency. the civil war and more. here's a clip from a recent program. facts.ppen to know the i'm just an average american, but i am an american american. some of the things i see in this country of ours make my blood

boil. i see negroes holding jobs that belong to me in you. i ask you, if we allow this thing to go on, what is going to become of us real americans? >> i heard this kind of talk before, but i never expected to hear it in america. >> you will find it right here in his little path for it -- pamphlet. the truth about negroes and foreigners. the truth about the catholic church. friends, we will never be able to call this country our own until it is a country without. without what? alient negroes, without foreigners, without catholics, without freemasons. what's wrong with the masons?

i am a mason. that fellow is talking about me. and that makes a difference, doesn't it? >> these are your enemies. now you know them, you know what they stand for. and it's up to you and me to fight them. but them and destroy them before they destroy us. iq. >> before reset amazing, you were ready to agree with him. >> yes, but what about those other people? >> in this country, we have no other people. we are american people. >> i was born in hungary, but now i am a citizen. i can see what this kind of talk can do. i saw it in berlin. i was a professor at the university. i heard the same words we have heard today, but i was a fool then.

zis were crazy people, stupid fanatics. but unfortunately, they are not so. but watch this on our website, where all of our video is archived. next, a history professor uses photographs and diary interests -- injuries to describe the friendship between herbert hoover and harry truman. this was part of the herbert hoover assumes library and museum's daylong conference entitled presidential partnerships, herbert hoover and trolling, coolidge, -- truman, and eisenhower. welcome back to the second half of our conference. starting off this afternoon is a