This day in history: Timber industry suffered under high interest rates. Woman accused of killing husband said she was abused and neglected

From 1975: The Inland Northwest’s timber industry was hurting in 1975, continuing a long-term downward trend.

“We’re in bad shape today, and even when the market gets better there’s a good chance we will be in bad shape then,” said a gloomy spokesman for the Western Wood Products Association.

“I believe this the worst I can remember,” said a forester for the Inland Northwest Forest Resource Council in Missoula. “We’ve had tough times before, and in 1967 and ’68 everyone limped along. Now some people have just had to quit.”

The Spokesman-Review noted that “mills have closed all over the Inland Empire, some temporarily and some possibly permanently.” The short-term cause was high interest rates, which had depressed the new home market.

From 1925: Ida Miles of Coeur d’Alene, took the stand on her own behalf during her trial for murdering her husband by “blowing up the shack in which he was sleeping.”

She told a story of neglect and abuse. She said her husband told her she “looked like a frog,” and that she was too “straight.”

“He called me a cull and an idiot with not personal attractions,” she said.

She also believed he was having an affair with a family friend. Her defense attorneys were attempting to establish that she had become temporarily unhinged mentally before exploding six sticks of dynamite under the shack.