100 years ago, 1915
In the future, street car conductors, who are on their job, will announce, as the cars come to a stop: “Union Square, Lewiston transfer station.” Lewiston’s mayor and board of aldermen met Tuesday morning to consider the adoption of a name for the square formed at the junction of Main and Lisbon streets. For many years this has, unofficially, been designated as “head of the street.” The Lewiston Journal asked the mayor and aldermen if they would act as judges in a contest for the selection of a name. The Journal offered a prize of $10 in gold to the person who first suggested the name adopted by the judges. Practically 2,000 suggestions were made and, of these, 878 were original. The winning name was Union Square suggested first by Cornelius J. Russell, a life-long resident of Lewiston.

50 years ago, 1965
The City of Auburn will be required to include in its next budget funds for the hiring of a full-time housing inspector if the city is to remain eligible for Federal funds doled out by the Housing and Home Finance Agency. The funds which the city are particularly interested in are those which might be available for an urban renewal program and housing for the elderly.

25 years ago, 1990
Beginning at 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 26, regular listeners to radio station WLAM — 1470 on the AM dial — will notice a difference. Though the basic format will remain the same — news, sports, weather and information occurring at the regular intervals — the music that “fills in the blanks” will be very different, said owner Ron Frizzell. WLAM, though billed as a Top 40 station, will offer more of an “adult contemporary” theme, he said. “We conducted two research polls and discovered that 90 percent of WLAM listeners want news, sports and information,” he said. “The music was almost inconsequential.” Acknowledging that the station will probably lose the other 10 percent of its listeners, Frizzell hopes to attract a new audience by offering them “The Music of Your Life,” based on the nonrock music of the ’40s,’50s and ’60s.

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