I couldn’t help recalling my boyhood days after reading the recent news concerning the Hotel Holly explosion. Born in 1927, growing up in the 1930s when that area was thriving, I walked to school from Lincoln Street, up Main Street to attend Dingley, Jordan and Lewiston High. I thought my recollection of the area might be of interest to younger people.

If my memory serves me correctly, starting at the corner of Lincoln and Main was the Hotel Cumberland (a tattoo parlor recently demolished). Moving up Main Street was the lower train station that brought visitors from the coast. The Tavern Hotel (Holly) that catered to traveling businessmen had a barber shop operated by a Filipino gentleman who cut hair with scissors (no clippers) and singed stray hairs with a lighted candle.

Directly across from there was an up-scale Hotel Littleton and farther up was the Empire Theater, which remains today. Then, there were all the shops on Lisbon Street and several restaurants in the immediate vicinity. Hulett Square included Peck’s Department Store and directly behind was the Exchange Hotel, where I worked as a busboy and bartender.

When you look back and realize there were four hotels, a train station, a theater, many shops and restaurants and a large department store, it was truly a gateway.

Richard Roux, Lewiston