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World's Fair Tickets

1962 · Seattle, Washington

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Ticket 6
Ticket 6
Ticket 8
Ticket 8

Background

The circular blue rubber stamp reading "THE GATEWAY" on the top-center ticket shows where the holder entered the 74-acre fairgrounds of Seattle's **Century 21 Exposition** in 1962 — six stubs in two stock colors that together cover general admission, Fine Arts Pavilion entry, and a guide-book bundle.

April 21, 1962 — one month after John Glenn's orbital flight, nine weeks before the first Telstar satellite — the Century 21 Exposition opened in Seattle, running exactly 184 days and drawing nearly 10 million visitors to a site at the foot of Queen Anne Hill. The Space Needle, built for the fair at a cost of $4.5 million, went up in 13 months and became the city's permanent skyline mark. General fairgrounds admission was $2 for adults (roughly $20 today).

The salmon-pink tickets here are general fair-entry stubs. The buff-tan tickets are a separate class — they admit the holder to the Fine Arts Pavilion, which charged an additional 50 cents on top of fair entry. One tan stub carries a notation for "OFFICIAL GUIDE BOOK," suggesting a combo purchase that bundled pavilion admission with the fair's printed guide.

The Fine Arts Pavilion was designed by Paul Hayden Kirk of Kirk, Wallace, McKinley & Associates, with a distinctive accordion-folded roofline over 40,000 square feet of gallery space. Six exhibitions rotated through its five galleries during the run: Masterpieces of Art (72 works ranging from Titian to Picasso), The Paintings of Mark Tobey, Art Since 1950 in American and International editions, Art of the Ancient East, and Northwest Coast Indian Art. Over 125,000 people came through in the first month alone.

When the fair closed October 21, the grounds became Seattle Center, still in operation. The Fine Arts Pavilion eventually became Seattle Center Exhibition Hall; the building at 301 Mercer Street now houses Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Researched with claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 on May 24, 2026. AI-assisted — verify before citing.

Highlights

  • The pink general-admission ticket reads 'SEATTLE WORLD'S FAIR / April 21 to October 21, '62,' locking the item to the exact 184-day run of the Century 21 Exposition.
  • A circular blue rubber-stamp impression reading 'THE GATEWAY' has been applied to the top-center tan ticket, indicating this stub was used and the holder entered through one of the fairgrounds' named entrance gates.
  • 'FINE ARTS EXHIBIT' appears in printed text on the top-right tan ticket, identifying it as a separate-admission pavilion stub distinct from general fairgrounds entry.
  • 'OFFICIAL GUIDE BOOK' is printed on the top-right tan ticket, indicating this stub was part of a bundled purchase that included the fair's printed guide alongside Fine Arts Pavilion admission.
  • The Century 21 logo — a stylized globe with the numeral 21 and a Space Needle silhouette — appears on each ticket as the fair's consistent visual brand.
  • Serial numbers visible on each stub reach into the 300,000–600,000 range (e.g., 338085, 385348, 638070), reflecting the high-volume printing required for a fair that sold nearly 10 million admissions.

Further reading