YESTERDAY …
10 years ago — May 7, 2005
(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)
BANGOR — Four years of rapidly increasing real estate prices have been something in land Mainers have heard about from friends in Boston, Portland or other areas along the coast.
But that has changed, seemingly overnight. Bankers and real estate agents say the trend started two or three years ago, but only now are people really starting to notice.
Barbara True can tell you all about it. As a real estate agent for Dawson-Bradford Co. in Bangor, True has witnessed amazing change. Consider a Glenburn home that sold for $165,000 three years ago and was resold recently, with no major improvements, for $288,000.
True tells of another young couple who found their perfect house. Wanting to make sure they got it, they offered $11,000 more than the asking price, only to have someone else get it.
ORONO — The University of Maine, forging a new relationship with the U.S. Army, announced a $6.2 million research contract to develop and construct buildings and bridges with wood and synthetic composites.
The military is looking for prefabricated, lightweight, portable buildings and reinforced tents that would protect troops from rocket attacks and shrapnel and be easy to transport and put together.
The two-year contract brings UMaine one step closer to becoming an Army Center of Excellence, a designation that would enable the campus to have a permanent place in the military budget and to be called on regularly to perform other research and development projects. That would mean millions more dollars for research and more jobs.
25 years ago — May 7, 1990
BANGOR — Imagine Caroline Fuller Farrar’s joy when her husband, Isaac, gave her a 16-room mansion as a wedding gift. With such an elegant home located downtown at the height of Bangor’s heyday, Mrs. Farrar must have proudly cultivated her reputation as one of Bangor’s most respected ladies. She was known for her hospitality to friends, statesmen and visiting celebrities such as Ralph Waldo Emerson. She also was regarded as an exquisite cook, decorating her beautifully appointed dining room table with delicacies.
To commemorate the first lady of the Farrar Mansion, members of the Isaac Farrar Mansion committee have gathered a collection of traditional and new recipes into a cookbook called “The Isaac Farrar Mansion Cookbook.”
OLD TOWN — An Old Town woman who recently muscled her way to another bodybuilding championship is now turning her sights to the national collegiate competition in June.
Jen Smart, 23, topped three other competitors in her class at the New England Body Building Championships in Boston. Smart, a business administration major at the University of Maine and former Black Bear basketball player, has other trophies on a shelf to provide company for though she brought home from Boston last weekend.
in 1987, Smart was crowned Miss Maine and Miss Northern New England in bodybuilding, and usually competes in about two at three competitions in the state each year. She has been competing in bodybuilding since 1986, when she took a hiatus from basketball to pursue the sport.
50 years ago — May 7, 1965
BANGOR — The reconstructed Morse Covered Bridge, one of 10 left in the state, is shaping up in grand style and citizens are eagerly awaiting its official opening to pedestrian traffic. The bridge committee is still seeking funds, however, to complete paying for the cost of reconstructing the bridge.
HAMPDEN — Hampden selectmen will map plans for this community’s first shade tree planting program at their monthly meeting. And appropriation of $400 was authorized at the March town meeting for the program. Town Manager Robert J. Day described this sum as a start. He indicated several service organizations have shown interest in assisting and supplementing the program, which will consist of both planting new shade trees and the removal of dead and dying types not included in the Dutch Elm disease operation.
ORONO — The Main Masque Theater’s Spring Art’s Festival opened its fourth production of the season with “The Rose Tattoo,” by Tennessee Williams.
The play is a lusty comedy revolving around the grief of a seamstress over the death of her husband, and the mystic significance of a rose tattoo.
E.A. Cyrus, scene designer, did an excellent job of handling scenery, lighting, properties and sound effects, which added to the Italian atmosphere and created an effective mood for the play.
100 years ago — May 7, 1915
BANGOR — On the basis of the purchase of three tanks of oil for use in sprinkling the streets of Bangor, the same amount which was last purchased by the city, a saving will be affected this year of $375, owing to the low price of oil due to the European war [World War I] and the business depression in this country which has curtailed the usual large market for the commodity.
At the regular May meeting of the city council the matter of sprinkling the streets with oil will be discussed and it is likely that it will be authorized.
If properly done, it is figured by the city engineer that it will be less expensive and much more effective than sprinkling by water, which lays the dust for a few moments only on a hot day.
A petition has been presented to Mayor Robinson by residents of State Street, from the waterworks to Mount Hope cemetery, asking for sprinkling by oil and offered to pay a reasonable share of the expense. This thoroughfare is used so much by automobiles, it is generally in such a dusty condition in warm weather, the dust nuisance is a serious matter with the residents.
ALTON — The Sargent Brothers are building a sawmill to take the place of the one which was recently burned.
The Methodist Episcopal parsonage has been renovated by the Society in the way of paint and paper, and other improvements. It soon will be occupied by the new pastor Mr. Bennett and family
E.L. Judkins is home, as work on Pea Cove boom is suspended on account of high water.
Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin