100 years ago, 1916
The land and buildings on Park street, Lewiston, owned by George W. Furbush have been sold to the Bradford, Conant Co., this city. Plans for the development or the property have not been made public. The land has a 50 foot frontage on Park street and had a. depth of 100 feet before about 9 feet were taken off for the city’s needs in the construction of Lisbon street alley. The building includes the J. H. Goddard livery stable and several tenements. It is expected that it will be used as a garage, stable and storehouse for the present.

50 years ago, 1966
The opening Tuesday of King’s Self-Service Department Store at the Auburndale Shopping Center on Center Street brought thousands of persons to the center and caused a massive traffic tie-up on Center Street. Auburn police, with officers on duty at the shopping center parking lot through the day and Tuesday night, reported the parking lot was jammed full of cars, and that an area in back of the store used normally for deliveries was utilized Tuesday as parking space for passenger cars. During at least one period of the day, traffic was backed up from the shopping center, southerly along Center Street, for close to a mile.

25 years ago, 1991
True or false: There’s no snow on the ground, therefore the chances of spring flooding are nil. False. “Even though there is no snow on the ground in areas in central and southern Maine, recent snowfall in northern Maine and higher elevations in western Maine has raised water content of the snowpack to normal or above normal levels in Maine’s major river basins,” Derrill Cowing, Maine’s chief of the U.S. Geological Survey, said Friday. Which means there’s about an average risk of flooding here on the shores of the Androscoggin River.

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