100 years ago: 1925

J.W. White Company sought to convince Mainers to build more summer cottages, with its help, of course. “Build Summer Cottages,” the firm urged. “Boost Maine.” It said that many summer visitors “lease cottages and each year the supply is inadequate to satisfy the demand. Summer cottages in good locations will lease readily and at a good profit. If you occupy them yourself they will pay you a profit also in additional happiness and better health.”

50 years ago: 1975

A Lewiston business, Gerry’s Market at 36 Grove St., was “illegally entered during the night and stolen were a large quantity of beer and cash.” “By prying the front door with a long, sharp object,” police said, thieves made off with 22 six-packs of beer and three cartons of cigarettes. Police estimated the loss at $60.

25 years ago: 2000

“The region’s immediate economic outlook is positive,” one of Maine of Maine’s top economists told area business and civic leaders Tuesday. The long view, while not exactly negative, isn’t quite as rosy.

Charles Colgan, who chairs the state’s Consensus Economic Forecasting Commission, envisions continuing labor shortages, an aging population and urbanization as factors that could tarnish an otherwise a mostly bright future.

“Short-term, Maine’s economy hums along,” Colgan said during a breakfast meeting at Lewiston-Auburn College.

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