Lewiston police were notified yesterday that burglars visited J. G. Richardson’s stable on Upper Main street, Lewiston, earlier in the day and stole Mr. Richardson’s 17-year old buckskin mare and a black beach wagon with red running gear. The department has notified officers in surrounding towns and hopes to apprehend the guilty parties. The theory is advanced that the persons breaking into the Monmouth store early Monday morning took Mr. Richardson’s team. The owner is hoping that the burglars will desert the team in the country and that it will soon be reported.

50 Years Ago, 1956

It was just 23 years ago this afternoon the New Auburn fire caused $2,000,000 damage and made more than 1,500 persons homeless. The fire, which started in the rear of a Mill Street garage, spread to a three-story tenement building at the rear of the garage.

The winds were strong that May 15 and the fire was out of control a short time. It carried onto Broad Street and then to First Street, Second Street, Third Street and Fourth Street, burning everything in its path up to about six blocks on each street.

Two schools and Beth Abraham Synagog were destroyed. The lone building remaining after the fire and smoke died down in the area of St. Louis Church was the church structure.

25 Years Ago, 1981

VATICAN CITY – Pope John Paul II, shot down by a Turkish gunman as he greeted 15,000 tourists and faithful at his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square, came through more than 5½ hours of surgery for six wounds in “good and stable” condition, his doctors said early Thursday.

• A Catholic priest told a small group of Lewiston worshippers at a special Mass at St. Joseph’s Church in Lewiston Wednesday afternoon that there were no answers to why an assassin had tried to kill Pope John Paul II earlier in the day. The Rev. Ronald Schmit, assistant pastor of St. Patrick’s Church, said, “No one can give an answer to this.”

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