100 years ago, 1916
“The more comment we read on Congressman McGillicuddy’s scheme to dredge out the Androscoggin and make Lewiston a port of navigation, the more do we become convinced that a motor boat trip from Portland to the Spindle City does not seem particularly near.” — Portland Express-Advertiser

50 years ago, 1966
L-A residents buckled down Monday afternoon to the mammoth task of digging out from the season’s worst snowstorm, but it was expected to be several days before snow removal operations make much of a dent in the 18.5-inch accumulation. All forms of transportation were snarled for hours Sunday night and Monday morning, but highway department crews began to gain on the snowfall around noon. Plows spent Monday night breaking open the secondary roads they couldn’t reach during the height of the storm.

25 years ago, 1991
It’s 8:50 a.m., and the tip of the excavator’s giant claw scratches the tar-paper siding at 125-127 Oxford St., Lewiston, then slowly pushes its way into the second-floor hallway to the sound of splintering wood and cracking walls. The demolition has begun. “See how easy it is?” contractor Roland Chabot asks with a wide grin. To the handful of Little Canada neighbors watching, this must be by now a familiar sight. Today there is more demolition going on one street over, at 9-13 River St., two buildings the city recently had condemned. A few weeks ago 37 River St. was demolished just as Chabot tore down and hauled away the remains of 122 and 124 Oxford St., two buildings destroyed by a fatal fire in December. The structure at 69 River St. had burned just days before, and its rubble disappeared almost instantly. On the street today, no one is complaining. “It’s about time,” says Rosemary Paraskevakos, 50, of 135 Oxford St., who has lived in this neighborhood for 16 years. “We won’t be worried about having fires close by. I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights since that one over there,” she says, pointing toward the phantoms of 122 and 124 Oxford.

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