YESTERDAY …
10 years ago — Jan. 15, 2005
(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)
BANGOR — If it had happened in August, it would’ve been just another small hometown fire. But the paralyzing subzero temperatures, combined with the high winds on Jan. 15, 2004, made the millions of gallons of water thrown at the burning Masonic Hall turn into a mantle of ice.
The firefighters’ brave efforts resulted in a spectacular image reminiscent of a gleaming white marble sculpture.
Photographs of the still burning crystal castle circulated internationally as newspapers as far away as Japan publicized images of the ice encased building in the days after the fire.
Masonic literature from lodges across the globe also spotlighted the conflagration for months afterwards.
BANGOR — The city clerk has come up with a plan that would bring all nine of the city’s polling places under one roof, namely the Bangor Civic Center.
The idea is to consolidate all aspects of elections — from voter registration and voting to absentee ballot processing and counting — in a single location.
Combining the city’s voting would require a public hearing and votes by the council to consolidate voting districts and polling places.
As it stands, Bangor has four voting wards, each divided into two precincts, as well as a central polling site at City Hall.
25 years ago —Jan. 15, 1990
OLD TOWN — A fire of unknown origin broke out in the turbine room at the James River Corp. mill here late Sunday.
A dispatcher at the Old Town Fire Department said firefighters received reports that three stories of the mill were “fully involved” in flames. The fire, reported by a mill security guard, apparently began in the No. 4 turbine at the mill, located near the dam on the Penobscot River.
BANGOR — A wedding gown with a portrait collar and cathedral train with sequins and pearls was modeled by Kristin Cerbone during a bridal show at the Bangor Mall. Lorraine Gosselin’s Monogram and Bridal Boutique provided the fashions and the models.
50 years ago — Jan. 15, 1965
BANGOR — Alone with no relatives or friends to visit or take an interest in his welfare, an aged Bangor resident would lead a cheerless, solitary existence were not for a group of volunteers engaged in friendly visitation under the auspices of the Family and Child Services of Bangor.
Brightening the world for the elderly in the city of Bangor, the volunteers visit weekly housebound clients.
Five local women comprise the corps of volunteers who are serving the Bangor area.
BANGOR — Deep within the dim catacombs of Bangor City Hall’s low ceiling basement — rooms dug into the side of Hammond Street hill back in the 19th century — stands stacked in a dusty corner the portraits and their emptied frames of the city’s past greats.
Local history, shifted from one municipal wall to another over the decades, finally got bumped into the cellar, the city’s first urban renewal dislocation.
When the urban renewal staffers took over the fourth floor “attic” the pictures were toted to their final resting place, a basement storage room that bears no slight resemblance to the subsurface reaches of the more famous Parisian sewers.
Amid the debris of scattered lumber, trash buckets, dried-up paint cans and a box of empty whiskey bottles left over from her recent convention lay the locally famous politicians who once rocked City Hall with rhetoric, the Queen City’s mayors and aldermen of 100 years.
The early photographs — including that of an “outsider,” a full-length portrait of Abraham Lincoln — are packed between a couple of pieces of curling cardboard. Nearby, two dozen massive wood frames richly adorned in gold filigree are stored janitor style — wherever they land.
However, the municipal government, possibly it was the library staff, is not without a finger on the past and eye for posterity. The portraits of the mayors were copied several years ago in uniform size and catalogued in a portfolio stored at a Bangor library for rainy day perusal.
100 years ago — Jan. 15, 1915
BANGOR — One of the most sensational civil cases ever tried in Bangor is on the docket for next week, this being the suit of Miss Elizabeth Garmong against John B. Henderson, the Washington clubman and millionaire.
Miss Garmong, who has established a residence in Bangor, claims that she met Mr. Henderson in Bar Harbor and that there ensued between them a romance, in the course of which he asked her to become his wife. He refused to make good his promise, she claims, and as a result she now ask damages in the comfortable sum of $250,000. It is intimated that she will have a very interesting story to relate upon the stand.
Mr. Henderson denies having proposed to Miss Garmong, and says he never gave her cause to believe that he cared for her. He denies almost in their entirety, the allegations in her writ.
The vast sum asked by Miss Garmong, the prominence of the defendant and the element of romance and mystery that, rightly or wrongly, have been infused into the case, serve to make it of exceptional importance.
BANGOR — One year ago this morning at 12:45 o’clock and alarm was rung in for a fire at the Opera House which proved to be a serious and disastrous conflagration, resulting in the loss of two lives, injuries to four men and the total destruction of the theater.
With the temperature at zero and a biting, frosty atmosphere the firemen and spectators suffered severely from the cold.
The tremendous volume of water froze in huge bodies, covering the entire front wall, which were left standing, and making a mound of ice on the sidewalk many feet high.
The wires were coated with ice and the picture presented next day and for several days was most spectacular. January of last year was a disastrous one for fires. A week after the Opera House destruction there was a second alarm for fire which had broken out in the scenery room on the north corner buried under tons of ice. On Jan. 28 the fire which destroyed the NEWS plant in Exchange Street took place.
CASTINE — After the Scout meeting, 17 of the boys went down to the back shop where they lighted a campfire and enjoyed apples and candy furnished by the Scoutmaster and one of the Scouts. The trip was made at “Scout’s pace” and they sang songs both ways. In the competition for promotion, the Eagle patrol still leads but the Buffaloes are not far behind. More than 30 examinations were passed during the week.
BANGOR — With the women all over America working with all their might for the relief of the unspeakable suffering among the wounded soldiers in Europe [World War 1], no one will be surprised that the local Red Cross Chapter is not willing to rest content with its work already accomplished, but is earnestly discussing the wisest methods for further effort.
Surgical dressings and hospital shirts are asked for from Washington. To Miss Paine has been entrusted the duty of purchasing some surgical dressings, but the hospital shirts must be made.
They are, however, very simple to make and do not cost much; and to make one or two of them, and to furnish the material, would not lay much of a burden upon any woman in this part of Maine.
Three yards and a half of good, substantial cotton cloth is required for each garment. Patterns will be furnished by the work committee, but since many women do not sew, gifts of material from them would enable some who do sew and are longing to help in some way to avail themselves of the chance to do so.
To all workers in the surrounding towns, a complete garment will be sent for a sample, if they desire it, and in cases where they feel they cannot contribute material, cotton cloth also will be sent, although the sum of money at present available for the purchase of material is decidedly limited
Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin