100 years ago, 1915
As the story goes, a fur salesman has been in Lewiston and Auburn recently offering “bargains in furs” and succeeded in finding several customers who, while they were led to believe they were buying choice pieces of fur at ridiculously low prices, in reality paid fancy prices for cheap imitations. It is said that several of these fur salesmen have been working in New England since the opening of the fur season and have shown coats, muffs and scarfs, at prices which they claimed were less than half the regular retail prices for the same articles. They have specialized in imitation lynx and Far Eastern mink.

50 years ago, 1965
Many residents of the Lewiston-Auburn area experienced about an hour’s loss of power early Monday night and, according to the Central Maine Power Company, the fly in the ointment turned out to be a squirrel in the works. The widespread power failure, which occurred about 5:45 p.m., was caused by a squirrel getting into equipment at Deer Rips Dam, it was reported by Roland S. Rand, CMP district manager. “Apparently a squirrel got into the equipment and tripped out some circuits,” Rand said. The little animal’s inquisitiveness not only cost him his life, it also knocked out power in a large area of Greene and Lewiston, North Auburn, West Auburn, and East Auburn.

25 years ago, 1990
(Photo Caption) A Callahan Brothers crane attempts to lift the collapsed canopy of the Turnpike Exit 12 toll booth off the trailer of the truck that knocked it down Friday. The Auburn booth had to be reconstructed after a tractor-trailer with an over-wide load knocked down its canopy, said John Taylor, director of maintenance for the Maine Turnpike Authority. He said that traffic was backed up for a time by the accident, but that other toll booth lanes were kept open during the repair work.

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