100 years ago, 1916
An increase of ten percent, effective January 1, will be given the operatives in the large cotton mills of Maine. Including those in Lewiston, Auburn, Waterville, Augusta, Brunswick, Biddeford and Saco, by vote of directors taken at Boston, yesterday. It is believed here that corresponding increase will be granted those of the smaller mills. Cotton manufacturing plants in this state, according to the latest report of the Maine Department of Labor, employ on the average 15,510 hands.

50 years ago, 1966
(Photo Caption) A new look is developing on Center Street where in the near future three Auburn automobile concerns will have new facilities. Work already has started at two of the new locations, those for Marcotte Chevrolet Inc., shown in the top photo, at the former Wilkins Lumber Co. site, and for Auburn Motor Sales Inc. (bottom photo) near the East Auburn Fire Station. As yet no activities have commenced on the large tract (center) owned by Advance Auto Sales Inc. This latter concern currently is located in the area encompassed by the Great Falls Urban Renewal Project.

25 years ago, 1991
December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor, 7:55 a.m. The picture, like the words, comes easily and clearly to Thomas Deroche. “It was a beautiful morning. And all these planes — I heard them coming over and I looked up.” Deroche immediately assumed he was seeing U.S. planes on maneuvers until “all of a sudden they peeled off and dropped bombs and torpedoes. And I decided maybe this wasn’t a maneuver.” As it turned out, he was seeing the opening shots of America’s involvement in World War II. The Rumford native, then a 20-year-old private in the Marine Corps, was in a 20-foot steel tower overlooking one of two oil-tank farms at Pearl Harbor. Only 20 yards from the water, he had a clear view of battleship row. For Erwin Crocker, the young private from Minot, who worked as a photo lab technician in the Army Corps, he vaguely recalls being wakened shortly before 8 a.m. by the sound of “machine gun bullets and the little kind of kaboom-kaboom of bombs going off.”

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