There’s a picture of the old Sonny Boy bread truck from 1964, an undated shot of the Rollodrome and a 1950s-era fellow with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth, clutching stilts with both hands.
They’re posted to a Facebook page created June 22, “Growing up in Auburn,” that has drawn 2,617 members and scores of local “remember whens.”
“Where I learned to rollerskate . . . black and blue butt . . . but I learned.”
“I remember the dances at the Danville Grange. There was a girl named Lola Thibodeau who I gave my first go steady ring to and I thought was just the cutest girl in the world.”
“Hey does anyone remember Lum’s? Hot dogs cooked in beer, their pastrami was excellent.”
The page was created by Roger E. Cyr. David Gudas is responsible for dozens of the pictures.
“The ones that really raise eyebrows are from the 1800s,” Gudas said. “People are just aghast at what (the area) looked like and how we came to be.”
Several years ago, he and a city of Lewiston co-worker copied scores of local pictures from the Historic Preservation Commission archive in Augusta. Some of the old shots started out as mysteries and some still are. He shared one photo in “Growing up in Auburn” last week, of a row of grand houses; site visitors chimed in that it was a shot of Beacon Avenue.
Gudas posted 16 images Thursday of the terrible July 7, 1949, crash of Auburn and Lewiston firetrucks. Auburn was responding to a two-alarm fire, he said, and Lewiston was coming over the bridge to man the Auburn station while that truck was gone. The collision killed a police officer on traffic duty and two Lewiston firefighters.
“As they’re cleaning (the trucks) up, there’s all these old buildings that people are going to remember,” Gudas said. “The old gas stations, the old clocks. Far beyond the accident exists an Auburn that was different.”
Mayor Jonathan LaBonte, who grew up in Auburn, has dropped in on the group and posted comments.
“I’ve long prided myself on being a Lewiston-Auburn history geek,” he said. “A lot of people might not otherwise meet, they may not travel in the same social circles or they may have grown up here and left. It’s a chance for them to reconnect, which is cool.”
Across the river, there’s another Facebook page called “I was born in Lewiston, ME . . . and remember when” with 3,330 members, started more than a year ago. It has shots of Grand Trunk rail cars, the Empire Theater, churches and, for those feeling fast-food nostalgic, a shot of the old McDonald’s on Lisbon Street.
Wrote one woman about that McDonald’s: “This was like the holy grail of, ‘OK you kids were good, let’s go’ when my brothers and I were growing up.”
kskelton@sunjournal.com
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- Wooden toll bridge over the Androscoggin River in the late 1800s.
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- An old photo that David Gudas shared on “Growing up in Auburn” last week was identified by other fans of the Facebook page as a shot of Beacon Avenue.
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- A photo of the Auburn Engine House was shared on the new “Growing up in Auburn” group on Facebook.
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- An old photo looking down Court Street in Auburn across the bridge onto Main Street in Lewiston. The steeple in the distance is that of the Pine Street Congregational Church.
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