100 years ago, 1909

The Mason Motor Fan Company, whose capital stock is $250,000, has leased the W. R. Lynn shoe shop on Main Street, Auburn, for five years and will soon begin installing its machinery there. The factory will employ about 100 hands, mostly skilled workmen. The concern manufactures a patent fan which runs without electricity but by the simple means of winding it up as a clock.

50 years ago, 1959

The parents of a 15-year-old Auburn girl, found by police almost two weeks ago living in a small shack because she was afraid of her father and didn’t want to go home, have been charged with child neglect, and custody of the child has been given to the Maine Department of Health and Welfare pending a hearing.

Police related that despite her action of living in the shack away from her home, the girl went to school every day and kept her school dress hanging up in her temporary abode.

25 years ago, 1984

A Lewiston radio station has resubmitted a request for a variance to allow it to convert a Webber Avenue transmitting station into an office and studio. The request comes three months after a similar variance was turned down because the facility is located in a residential zone.

Plans call for WCOU to move from its present offices at 159 Lisbon St. to a renovated building on the site of the station’s transmitting facility at 511-557 Webber Ave.