This day in history: Big layoffs were coming to Kaiser’s Trentwood plant, and 50 years earlier, agents made a big sake bust

From 1975: The Trentwood plant of the Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp., a major area employer, announced that it would lay off between 200 and 250 men.

The layoffs would “begin immediately and extend over three or four weeks,” the company said.

The reason? A decline in demand for aluminum mill products.

This was a further sign that the Spokane area’s aluminum industry was in jeopardy. A month earlier, the company’s Mead plant shut down one of its potlines, and 90 workers were idled.

A company spokesman said they hoped that a rebound would allow “an early callback of these employees.”

From 1925: The county’s “dry squad” found four “saki” (sake) stills when it raided what it called “the Japanese colony in ‘No Man’s Land,’ northeast of Hillyard.”

“A large quantity of saki, which is a rice whisky, was confiscated, together with about 150 gallons of rice mash,” the dry squad said.

The stills were in “caves and dugouts on the Great Northern right-of-way, near the shacks and boxcar homes of the Japanese, who are all section hands employed by the railroad.”

Two men were charged with manufacturing liquor, and two others were charged with possession.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1947: French fashion designer Christian Dior presents his first influential collection, named the “New Look.”

2016: Pope Francis meets Patriarch Kirill in Havana in the first meeting between the heads of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches in nearly 1,000 years.