100 years ago,1911

A brief shower that started about 11:30 o’clock last evening was the first rainfall, excepting a shower the night of the White Planing Mill fire, since the first week in April. Last evening’s shower was only sufficient to lay the dust.

50 years ago, 1961

BATH — City Fathers breathed a sigh of relief Tuesday with the news that a $58,659,000 Defense Department contract has been awarded the Bath Iron Works Corp.

However, Omar R. King, BIW’s vice president, said the shipbuilder still will be forced to lay off a substantial number of workers before work on three new guided missile frigates can be started.

King also announced that the shipyard took the contract at a loss… “to provide long-range work for the highly skilled working force at Bath, especially men skilled in guided missile ship work.”

25 years ago, 1986

Terry Labonte of Corpus Christi, Texas, is the latest of America’s leading stock car drivers to enter the July 13 Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway. The $150,000 NASCAR Busch Grand National/Oxford Open Competition is considered the prize jewel in all of stock car racing’s short track events.

Labonte is the 1984 Winston Cup National Champion and has earned the nickname “The Ice Man” for his cool-under-fire style of driving. It will be his second Oxford 250 appearance.