100 years ago, 1915
The citizen-republican tickets headed by Wallace H. White, Jr., were driving the democrats to every extreme into today’s Lewiston city election. Money and booze flowed like water and altho the ward rooms were not scenes of the wildest disorder, the report that a gang of repeaters had been imported from Portland, kept the anti-democratic forces alert. Votes wore challenged in every ward in the city and in two an accused repeater ran onto Main street, down Bates and away with Policeman Davis and Chief McCarron in pursuit.

50 years ago, 1965
The huge Cushman-Hollis shoe factory building on Court Street, Auburn, is changing hands March 15. Under an agreement signed Monday, Charles Levin of Lewiston and Anthony J. Dumas of Lisbon Falls are purchasing the property, one of the largest shoe manufacturing plants in this section of the country. Present tenants of the building are to be given the opportunity to expand their space as the two floors, which formerly housed the Charles Cushman Co., are vacant. No changes in tenants or building personnel are planned by the new owners. The plant, which has a frontage of more than 300 feet on Court Street, takes in all the area surrounded by Union and School streets and the Maine Central Railroad.

25 years ago, 1990
Would Mercedes Benz sponsor a marathon race to benefit the Auburn Public Schools? Or would taxpayers object to school officials raffling a trip for two to Hawaii to draw in more money for education? Would educators really consider donning masks and robbing a bank to buy textbooks? Maybe none of those ideas would fly, but others suggested at a brainstorming session among the School Committee just might prove the solution to the city’s education funding woes. The session was aimed at culling some nontraditional, offbeat ideas for education funding. The brainstorming began with the ground rules: the wildest, most unconventional ideas imaginable, with no initial judgments.

The material in Looking Back is reproduced exactly as it originally appeared, although misspellings and errors made at that time may be edited.