100 years ago, 1917
The Civilian Relief department of the Lewiston and Auburn Red Cross sends out an urgent request for clothing, bedding, food and money to be sent at once to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The local department emphasizes the desperate need of these various necessities of living in that desolate city, where home after home has been destroyed by a munitions ship explosion in the harbor, leaving the survivors without shelter, clothing or food. Immediately upon receiving news of the disaster, the mayors of both Lewiston and Auburn, and the local Red Cross authorities sent word of their anxiety and desire to help in the relief work. From Lewiston, eight nurses were given passports and left immediately for Halifax.  

50 years ago, 1967
Barry Richelsoph, a husky, 220-pound Bates College senior student, watched Paul Newman put away 50 hard boiled eggs in the movie “Cool Hand Luke.” He decided immediately that he could do as well. Friday night, in a basement room at Wentworth Adams Dormitory, Richelsoph settled his six-foot-three-inch frame near a carefully set up hot plate and masterfully went to work. Friends scrambled eggs as fast as he could put them away. He downed a dozen or so, took some water, and chewed away again. Surrounded by back-patting fans. Richelsoph put away 45 scrambled eggs before calling it quits. Nobody called him chicken.

25 years ago, 1992
The prospective new owners of the old Marcal mill made one of their periodic visits Friday to inspect the property and to meet with town officials In snow and bitter cold, Judith Weatherwax-Knight and Robert P. Hicks, partners in Phoenix Investment Properties Inc. of Concord, N.H., walked around the mill property and talked about salvage and maintenance problems with Gale Williams. Jeff Coolidge and other local residents who are acting as caretakers. Weatherwax-Knight and Hicks confirmed that they hope to have a paper mill tenant operating in the mill in two years. Three buildings make up the mill, the oldest dating back to about 1810. It is now used as a carpenter shop.

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