25th anniversary photos: Stempin, library trying to identify CFAC employees

Gary Stempin and the Columbia Falls ImagineIf Library are looking for people who know the names of the original employees of the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co., formerly the Anaconda Aluminum Co.

Two photographs from the plant’s 25th anniversary celebration are up at the library. Stempin wants to find out the names of the 101 employees in the photos. Although some of them have died, he hopes their family members will take a look at the photos and identify their loved ones.

“At one time it (the plant) was the driving force for the whole community,” Stempin said. Employees came from all over the valley, even from Polson.

Stempin recently found the photos in a box of his father A. T. Stempin’s belongings. His dad retired in the 1990s after helping build the plant and working at it for nearly 40 years. Before that he had worked on the Hungry Horse Dam, like a lot of the other plant workers, Stempin said.

He remembered going to a anniversary picnic at the plant while photographs were being taken of groups of employees throughout the work day and over a number of days. He worked at the plant with his father for a couple of summers while in college.

He plans to take it around to other groups until every face gets a name. He would like to lend the photo to a local history museum at the end of the project.

AAC President Richard Van Horne and Robert Anderson sent a letter with the photograph as a gift to the employees who had worked at the plant for 25 years.

It said, “We honor not the existence of the plant for 25 years, but rather your stamina, devotion, and sacrifice for the good of the plant, the corporation, and our country. You provide the meaning for the world ‘celebration.’”