Vintage Postcard – Seattle World’s Fair 1962

Seattle World’s Fair
Show Street
Rue de spectacle
Calle de espectaculos
Color photo by Max R. Jensen
Century 21 Exposition

Seattle, Washington
April 21 – October 21, 1962

Published by C.P. Johnston Co., Seattle, Washington
Natural Color by Mike Roberts
Berkeley 2, Calif.

This lovely vintage postcard is unused.

Here are some highlights of the 1962 fair, from Wikipedia:

• Nearly 10 million people attended the fair which, unlike some other World’s Fairs of its era, it made a profit.
• The Space Needle was constructed for the 1962 event.
• The motto for the fair was Living in the Space Age.
• The site of the fair is now called Seattle Center.
• More than half the structures built for the fair were torn down after it ended.

Gracie Hansen’s Paradise International was a Vegas-style floor show.

The location is now the studios for KCTS-TV.

The US has not hosted a World’s Fair or Expo since New Orleans in 1984 and our country is not a part of the Bureau of International Expositions. Our membership was withdrawn in June 2001 due to the non allocation of funds by our Congress for two years (Congress has not provided a specific reason for failing to pay membership). If that fact p’s you off (lord knows it does me, and I have contacted Debbie Stabenow in the past), participation in the BIE is controlled by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and you can contact them here. Something so positive, that we can share with the world, and we refuse to participate? Nice.

The next World’s Fair is in 2015 in Milan. Read more about it here.