100 Years Ago: 1924

A mystery automobile has upper Turner street, Auburn people who keep late nights guessing.

It has no regular date for appearing and its hour is not a fixed one. It just comes racing down the direction of Turner, lightless and apparently bent on getting somewhere in the least possible lapse of time, at any time between 10 p. m. and midnight, on most any night of the week. Sometimes it makes but a single dash in the week; again it will rush down the street on a couple and on one occasion it has made three runs in a single week.

Each time the mystery car makes a trip it has been observed that in about 20 minutes or half an hour a fleet of autos will come down the road. This fleet will number from five to eight machines. Each will have its lights on and all of them will be moving at a brisk rate of speed, say 25 to 30 miles an hour, but not so fast as the darkened car which hits the road at, estimated by those who have seen it flash by, at from 50 to 70 miles the hour.

There may be no connection between the strange car in the wild rush toward town and the fleet of cars which come along after it has passed, but those who have observed the occurrences feel that there is more than a coincidence in the fact that each night the speeding car is observed the string of autos should pass along after about the same length of time.

“If it had occurred but once, it would not have attracted my attention, but after so many times, I cannot but feel that it means something,” says one man who has seen the dash and cavalcade.

Those who have seen the speeding car and then, later, the procession of machines are inclined to think that it is a part of a rum running plan. They suggest that the speeding first machine is merely a pilot, rushed down the road to clear the way for other machines loaded with liquors of one sort and another. This car dashing madly down the road would, naturally, attract the attention of any prohibition officers, either federal or state, who were on watch for rum runners. They would give chase and this would clear the way for the safe passage of the automobile or automobiles which carried the real cargo of liquor which was to be landed in the city.

50 Years Ago: 1974

The Lewiston Mammoth Mart Inc. store will remain open, says manager Steve Comeau. Comeau said that the company’s original plan was to close 16 of its 72 stores due to financial difficulties. Mammoth Mart’s situation is not as dark as first feared, however, and only three branches have been closed so far.

25 Years Ago: 1999

Each year, the boys at His Place Teen Center in Oxford have gotten together for a journey of camaraderie and personal achievement.

The 5th annual bike ride that began Friday will be no different as the group of eight, ages 12 to 16, pedal for 13 days across 378 miles. Their goal? To reach the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

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