YESTERDAY …
10 years ago — July 16, 2005
(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)
BANGOR — As the city continues to entertain ideas about developing and promoting its waterfront, Bangor’s leaders want to make sure they don’t overlook one crucial element.
“We’re running into a parking problem,” Rod McKay, economic and community development direction director said. “And as more development occurs, we’re going to have an even greater problem.”
Early development plans already are off and running for a facility on a city-owned parcel on Front Street that will house both office and retail space, and for a $12 million condominium project at the corner of Railroad and Summer streets.
HERMON — The chance to have a picture taken with a national famous motorcycle was too good to miss.
“We love the show ‘American Chopper.’ We watch it all the time,” Suzette Haskins, 41, of Levant said while cradling her 7-month old-grandson, Tyler Wiley.
The two posed for a picture with the “Miller chopper” at the parking lot of the Lynox Welding Supply. The vehicle was created by Orange County Choppers of New York, which is featured on the Discovery Channel television program.
Nearly 50 visitors were at the supply company for the first hour of the viewing, and many more were expected throughout the day for the promotional event.
25 years ago — July 16, 1990
ORONO — It may be an image of a cunning pink-nosed little Easter bunny or the memory of Bugs asking, “What’s up, Doc?” But whatever the reason, rabbit is not a particularly popular dish in America. It is quite a different thing in Germany, where rabbit is the main ingredient in the old German entree hasenpfeffer.
Rainer Suletzki of Orono often ate the spicy rabbit dish while he was growing up in the North German town of Flensburg, located 100 miles north of Hamburg, near the Danish border.
Suletzki, the regional manager of a German airline, said that many Germans and villages of the countryside raise rabbits. That’s because the animals take up little space, reproduce rapidly and eat carrots, lettuce leaves and clover from the garden. Those in cities must go to supermarkets for rabbit.
OLD TOWN — Allan and Bonita Harris are storekeepers, and according to Associated Grocers of Maine, they are good enough to be named Grocers of the Year for 1990.
The Harrises own and operate Harris Grocery, which is located at the intersection of routes 16 and 43 and Old Town. The store is typical of scores of other small grocery stores in Maine. It is open long hours and offers customers much more than groceries.
Customers can buy fresh coffee, sandwiches, gasoline, newspapers, magazines, selected hardware items, lottery tickets, auto accessories, school supplies and knitting yarns. They also can rent videotapes and have keys duplicated.
With their son, Steve, the Harrises live upstairs over the store. The store is open seven days a week and 96½ hours a week. Do the owners grow tired of the routine? Not really, they say. In fact, they say they find more family time than they did before they purchased the store 12 years ago.
50 years ago — July 16, 1965
BANGOR — Federal urban renewal officials toured Bangor’s redevelopment project areas, then sat down with local officials to help iron out planning problems.
With the advantage of instantaneous answers from the federal officers who act on urban renewal requests, the local redevelopment program downtown appear to find itself a way out of a planning snarl up that came to light only this week.
The Urban Renewal Authority found itself with insufficient planning funds to do the replanning work required downtown.
A preliminary sketch of Broad Street by architect F.A. Stahl and Associates Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed the new building complex running from Dakin’s building to a point at the right where the Bangor Drug Company now stands.
BANGOR — Local 385 of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butchers Workman Union, AFL-CIO, began picketing the two Columbia Markets in Bangor Thursday.
The union has been trying to organize the employees of the Columbia Markets in Bangor.
Elton Phinney, financial secretary-treasurer for the union statewide Local 385, said management has interfered with the rights of the employees to organize.
Phinney said the union had signed up 32 out of the 45 employees at the Columbia store at the Bangor Shopping Center. Store President Albert H. Smaha of the Columbia Markets declared that the corporation employed 86 people at Bangor, of whom only 10 were on strike.
100 years ago — July 16, 1915
BREWER — Just 50 years ago R.B. Williams of Brewer, at that time a member of the Eighth Regiment, Company B, witnessed in Washington the hanging of four of the conspirators implicated in the plot that resulted the assassination of President Lincoln.
Mr. Williams is one of the two Maine men now known to be living who were present at this execution. The other witness is Simon Grover, now living at Skowhegan.
Off the four who were executed, one was a woman, a Mrs. Mary A. Surratt, at whose home one of the plotters, Payn, was captured while trying to escape.
Payn tried to save Mrs. Surratt by swearing to her innocence but she was hanged with the other conspirators. It was at her house that the conspirators met while planning the assassination.
Mr. Williams has in his possession as a memento of the times, an old magazine containing a vivid account of the entire affair. The story is told in a feverish and exaggerated style that shows most plainly the tragic pitch to which the entire population of the country was stirred by the assassination of the president.
CASTINE — Charles W. Noyes of New York, a former resident of Castine, who has been untiring in his efforts to mark and preserve the historical points in Castine, spoke in a most interesting manner on Fort Pentagoet and the early history of Castine, a most comprehensive and valuable historical paper. He was followed by Dr. George a Wheeler, who was written a history of Castine and is an authority on many matters pertaining to the early history. He took as his topic “Castine During the Revolutionary Period and the War of 1812.”
Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin