100 years ago: 1919

There will be roller skating in Lewiston City Hall later this winter according to the Journal office Wednesday. Arrangements are now being made and an announcement will be made soon. The rink will be conducted by Charles and George Bouchales who formerly conducted a rink at the Exposition Hall in Portland. George was in the service about 12 months and recently returned. Charles has a shoe-shining parlor on Lisbon Street, which he opened after his brother went to war.

50 years ago: 1969

The Auburn and Lewiston City Councils met jointly last night in Auburn and both parties agreed to ask the State Highway Commission to delay recommendations on the site of the third bridge until Oct. 24. The action was taken to permit the two city councils to reach an agreement on a site and submit it to the SHC before the SHC transmits its recommendations to the cities. The delay until Oct. 24 resulted from a Lewiston Planning Board request that it be granted six weeks to conduct a study of the effects of the Lewiston terminus of the bridge and to answer several questions on data the LPB wants to have, before it makes its requested recommendation on the bridge site to the Lewiston council. Alderman John Kivus said he wished Lewiston were as fortunate as Auburn in the effect of the bridge on the city. He said the bridge fits into Auburn’s future planning and development but that such is not the case in Lewiston. He said last week’s situation of the report being received one-day before the SHS hearing was “unfair.” He said the bridge proposals “do not fit in with any of our development plans,” saying he recommended a six-week or 60-day delay to let Lewiston conduct its study. Alderman Robert Clifford said the planning board’s function was not to review the engineering factors of the proposals but; rather study the effect of the proposed sites in Lewiston and favored the delay requested.

25 years ago: 1994

The landmark Maine election of 1954, which thrust Edmund Muskie into the national spotlight and ended Republican domination of state politics, will be the subject of the 40th-anniversary symposium at Bates College today on a panel discussion on the election, which will be held at 7:45 pm in the Muskie Archives on Campus Avenue at 4:15 pm. Leading political observers will address the Maine political scene since 1954, also in the Muskie Archives. Muskie, then a young Waterville lawyer, won the Maine governorship in 1954, defeating GOP Incumbent Burton Cross. Muskie served two terms in the Blaine House before his election to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1980. He resigned from the Senate upon being named Secretary of State.

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