• Why is buckwheat, once Aroostook’s staple crop, now almost a thing of the past? The Fort Fairfield Review has asked that question of many farmers. The answer is generally this: When grain is sown here nowadays the ground is generally seeded for grass, and the grass comes along much better with wheat or oats than with buckwheat. Then farmers generally think they can get along without buckwheat better than without wheat or oats. Again, buckwheat is a more uncertain crop than oats, especially on low ground.

• Lewiston’s tax rate for 1908 will be 18.60 percent, slightly lower than was anticipated a short time ago. The rate for 1907 was 20 percent, which has been Lewiston’s tax rate since 1901. Only once since 1872 has Lewiston’s tax rate been as low as it is the present year, that being in 1886 when the rate was 18.50 per $1,000.

50 years ago, 1958

Lewiston Municipal Court Judge Fernand Despins last night asked the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to fence the remaining open side of the Frye School play area to keep out “ruffians” whose early evening antics are fraying the nerves of people in the neighborhood.

“It’s become intolerable,” the judge told the City Fathers in a lengthy, straight-from-the-shoulder description of current juvenile activities in this part of the city. “We want the place fenced in so that after hours we will have the same quiet that other sections of the city have,” the judge said.

25 years ago, 1983

SKOWHEGAN – Skowhegan State Fair, the oldest continuously operated fair on the North American continent, began a search in early June to find the Maine farm family that has continuously operated the same farmstead for the greatest number of years. The search is being conducted to emphasize the 165th anniversary theme of the fair, “The Farm Family – Maine’s Agricultural Heritage.”