This day in history: Vietnamese refugees settle in Washington, with more on the way; San Diego Zoo steps in after silent film star Nell Shipman abandons 40 animals at Priest Lake

From 1975: South Vietnamese refugees were referring to Washington Gov. Daniel J. Evans as the “friendliest American.”

“The state of Washington, alone among the 50 states, has developed its own wide-ranging Vietnamese resettlement program, that ranges from recruiting the new settlers at Camp Pendleton, Calif., right through to finding them homes, jobs and friends,” the New York Times reported.

More than 175 refugees had settled in Washington already, and the state just recruited 500 more. They were scheduled to “leave the stark, barren gullies of Camp Pendleton for the three-hour flight to this shady, green, National Guard facility (Camp Murray) near Tacoma.”

Evans said he saw some of the hostility toward refugees in other states, and vowed that “this was not the attitude we wanted associated with our state.”

From 1925: The San Diego Zoo came to the rescue of silent movie star Nell Shipman’s menagerie of animals.

More than 40 animals, which she had used in her wildlife adventure movies, had been abandoned at Shipman’s camp on Priest Lake. They had not been fed for days and were reported to be starving.

When the San Diego Zoo heard of the problem, they wired Kaniksu National Forest authorities and said they would pay the expenses of crating the animals and shipping them south.