The yearly report submitted by Fr. Dallaire, pastor of St. Peter’s Church, of Lewiston, for the year ending Dec. 31, 1906 shows that the church is in a prosperous condition and on a sound financial basis.

Total number of souls in Paris: 10,750; baptisms during year: 430; marriages during year: 122; deaths: 266. First communion was administered to 347. Number of children confirmed: 428. There are 1600 children in the schools connected with the church.

The year has been a prosperous one for the church, the money on hand Jan. 1, being $1000 more than for the year before. Cash on hand, Jan. 1, 1907: $9,730.75.

50 Years Ago, 1957

• Sen. Olin D. Johnson (D – SC) announced today the Post Office Department has revised its regulation to permit newspapers to put their names on receptacles used for the delivery of newspapers. Formerly, on receptacles attached to suburban and rural mail box posts, the Post Office Department held that newspaper names constituted advertising and were therefore prohibited.

• A quick-thinking Auburn man escaped possible serious injury about 6:45 last night when he jumped from his car just before it skidded into the path of a Bangor-bound freight train at the Hampshire Street grade crossing and was seriously wrecked.

25 Years ago, 1982

In Detroit, it’s the automobile; in West Paris, the clothespin.

“This would be a ghost town if we didn’t have this plant,” says Elvira Abbott, a 62-year-old widow who has labored for a quarter century at the Penley Corp., one of three clothespin manufacturers in western Maine.

While auto workers fret over Datsuns and Toyotas, clothespin makers are worried about cheaper imports from low-wage producers in China, Taiwan and Poland.

Penley, with a workforce ranging from 110 to 130, is the economic backbone of this town of 1,400. Its noisy old mill has provided jobs to generations of workers in West Paris and surrounding towns.