This day in history: 50 Vietnamese refugees were arriving to live temporarily at Eastern State College

From 1975: About 50 Vietnamese refugees were about to arrive in Spokane for “the gradual process of resettlement” in Eastern Washington.

They were on a flight from Camp Pendleton in California to the refugee center at Eastern Washington State College.

“It’s not a camp, it is a one-stop center to allow refugees to meet their sponsors and get acquainted,” a state official said.

They would live in Morrison Hall on the Cheney campus and eat at one of the college’s cafeterias.

The refugees were described as “mostly families,” comprising “a cross-section of Vietnamese society.”

Washington was proving to be more welcoming to Vietnamese refugees than many other states.

From 1925: Prohibition may have been the law of the land, but alcohol was at the center of several news stories.

In one case, police received a report that an “insane” driver had “gone crazy” on Second Avenue.

The driver swung over to the wrong side of the street, crashed into a parked car, careened back over to the right side of the street and crashed into a passing car.

Turns out, driver Ben Larson was not insane, just very, very drunk.

Meanwhile, in police court, Martin O’Brien, claimed that he had one drink at a saloon and “the next thing I heard, was a call for breakfast in jail.” He had no idea how he had arrived there.

Also in police court, another man was sentenced to 10 days in jail after he was discovered drunk in “a bed that was on fire.”

Finally, the Spokane police dry squad raided a home on North Grant Street and discovered 65 quarts of beer, three barrels of beer, large quantities of hops and malt, and the apparatus for brewing beer. The homeowner claimed he was “only making a little for my own self.”