100 years ago, 1917
The trolley fender and brake invented by Philomene Gagnier of Sabattus street is a true life-saving invention. For many years Mr. Gagnier has spent his spare time in perfecting this fender, and now he has secured patents, both in the United States and Canada. The L. A. & W. has equipped one of its parlor cars with the fender for trial purposes and the public utilities commission has promised to send an engineer to look it over. The fender is a neat-appearing arrangement of springy hardwood bars on a steel frame raised to the prescribed height of eight inches from the track. If the motorman sees a person on the tracks and hasn’t time to operate his regular brakes to avoid striking him or her, he pulls a lever, and the fender drops to the track, and two shoes back of the fender drop beneath the front wheels and as the bottom of the shoe is some two feet long it exerts such friction that the car stops within a few inches.

50 years ago, 1967
Personnel of the Lewiston Public Works Department this morning dismantled a barricade erected across the Cotton Road, Lewiston, by persons unknown. Adams said the barricade was discovered by his men early this morning. He said it was built of pulp wood apparently thrown haphazardly onto the road. The pile of wood at some points was about three feet high.

25 years ago, 1992
It took more than 20 years to remove gravel from a pit off Gracelawn Road; it’ll take less than 60 days to fill it. Since construction crews began excavating the former Whiteholm Farm on Mt. Auburn Avenue to make way for a new Wal-Mart store, hundreds of dump-truckloads a day have made the short trip between the two sites. An estimated 200,000 yards have been transported, with another 100,000 to go. The material, primarily sand and gravel with some loam set aside for the last layer, is being deposited free at the six-acre pit on district land where it will stay forever. The cost of purchasing enough material to fill the 30- to 40-foot-deep hole would run the district about $500,000.

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