100 Years Ago: 1924

The Waban Campfire Girls had a 7 cent fair and entertainment at Town Hall in New Gloucester, Monday evening.

Candy, popcorn and fancy articles were on sale and a fortune telling booth and fishing pond caused much amusement. The following entertainment was given: “Mammy Moon”, song by the Camp Fire Girls sitting around their camp fire; recitation, Ruth Sinclair; piano duet, Annie True, Dora Colomy; recitation, Muriel Marston; violin solo, Mae Hadley, Miss Minerva Hadley at piano; farce “What Happened?” Doris Hines and Doris Chapman; piano solo, Minerva Hadley.

50 Years Ago: 1974

Motorists were reminded today that meters in downtown Lewiston and Auburn don’t have to be fed during the current Christmas shopping season.

William P. Tewhey, executive vice president of the Lewiston-Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce, said some people are not aware of the special free parking program.

“They’re still feeding the meters and they don’t have to,” he noted.

Affected by the new edict are all on-street and off-street parking meters in downtown Lewiston and Auburn.

25 Years Ago: 1999

Workers on Thursday began the arduous process of raising the first of four railroad tanker cars that derailed and plunged into a deep pond last week. The Guilford Rail System cars went off the tracks in the Shawmut section of Fairfield last Wednesday because of a split rail. They were carrying 85,000 gallons of industrial fuel oil to the Sappi Fine Paper mill in Skowhegan.

Workers have been at the scene all week, preparing it for the heavy equipment needed to pull the completely submerged cars from the pond. The recovery effort was to begin Thursday, but officials did not expect to be able to raise the first car before nightfall, as was planned. They hoped to raise it Friday.

The first car must be raised high enough so workers can pump the oil from it into another car, said Mary R. James, a state Department of Environmental Protection oil and hazardous materials specialist.

“You have to think everything through and consider all the angles,” she said.

Environmental officials do not believe the cars are leaking any oil into the pond or the nearby Kennebec River, which is connected to the pond by a culvert running under the tracks.

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