From 1975: The employment outlook for Kaiser Aluminum’s plants in Spokane were looking bleaker than ever.
Kaiser said it was prepared to reduce capacity next month. It had already closed two of its eight pot lines at Mead. Production had been cut back at the Trentwood rolling mill as well.
The president of the company said, “We haven’t seen an upturn yet.”
In other news, 600 people signed a petition opposing a plan to turn the Southeast Boulevard corridor into a major arterial.
They wanted the city council to reverse its approval of the plan. The head of a group called Citizens Against South Expressways said the petitions “clearly indicate” that the plan was not wanted.
From 1925: Observers were at a loss to explain the pictographs found on the rocks on the Little Spokane River.
“Two figures of lizards, the first of the kind ever found in the Northwest states, are included in the drawings,” said the Spokane Daily Chronicle. “The principal figure is a sun face, indicative of the tribal sun worship which prevailed before the coming of the white man. As in virtually all Indian rock drawings, the buffalo holds a prominent place.”
The paintings were “first discovered” 34 years earlier “but have attracted little attention,” the report said. The newspaper ran pictures of the pictographs that were outlined in chalk by the photographer.
A member of the Spokane Tribe looked at the paintings and said he could “explain the sun face and buffalo, but the figures of the lizards baffled him.”
Today the site is protected by steel bars and called Indian Painted Rocks. The drawings are estimated at 250 years old.
