Feb. 5, 1967: Outdoorsman and Greenwood native Leon Leonwood Bean, 94, dies in Pompano Beach, Florida, 55 years after founding the iconic global company that bears his name. L.L. Bean opened in Freeport selling a single product – the Bean Boot, or Maine Hunting Shoe. Of the first 100 pairs sold, customers returned 90 because […]

Feb. 4, 1953: Prolific writer Ben Ames Williams, the author of “Come Spring” and “Leave Her to Heaven” and ardent chronicler of rural Maine life, dies in Brookline, Massachusetts, at the age of 63. Born in Macon, Mississippi, and raised in Jackson, Ohio, where his father owned the Jackson Standard Journal newspaper, Williams grew up […]

Feb. 3, 1997: The Portland and South Portland city councils vote to approve the name “Casco Bay Bridge” for the new $130 million span crossing the Fore River between the two cities. Earlier, a committee of representatives from the cities and the town of Cape Elizabeth recommended the name after evaluating 137 naming proposals. The […]

Feb. 1, 1976: Former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter, relatively unknown nationally until a few months earlier, collects more delegates in the Maine Democratic Party’s presidential caucuses than all the other candidates combined. His victory contrasts sharply with the results of a Gallup poll about a week earlier, in which only 4 percent of voters nationally […]

Jan. 31, 1945: A fire rips through a privately operated boarding home being used as an unlicensed nursery in Auburn, killing 16 babies and a nurse. Three women and five children escape the flames. The state had cited the operator for code violations, and although the operator had delayed making improvements, state authorities failed to […]

Jan. 30, 1649: The deposed King Charles I, whose forces were defeated in the English Civil War (1642-1651), is executed by beheading in London. Charles’ death essentially ends the dream of the family of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who died two years earlier, of extending its control from the province of Maine to all of New […]

Jan. 29, 1890: U.S. House Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed, a Republican from Portland, takes action to end the “disappearing quorum” tactic used by House Democrats to prevent House business from being conducted. He marks members “present” even if they refuse to respond to a roll call. The procedure survives a court challenge and becomes part […]

Jan. 28, 1768: Moses Little and Jonathan Bagley, both of Newbury, Massachusetts, receive a grant for land around the falls on the Androscoggin River from the Pejepscot Proprietors. A condition of the grant is that 50 families live there in 50 houses by June 1, 1774. In the fall of 1770, Paul Hildreth becomes the […]