YESTERDAY …
10 years ago — Aug. 13, 2005
(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)
BANGOR — The story of Beth Boisvert’s and Orin Bueten’s move from Baltimore reads a bit like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”
The Italianate home they toured in Bangor was too big. Way too big. The remodeled farmhouse in Orono was the right size, but it lacked a formal dining room for holiday meals and family gatherings. The Hampden house looked great online, but when they visited, it wasn’t what they had in mind, so they flew back to Maryland and figured they’d have to wait.
Then the Israel Washburn House, a Greek Revival house on the National Register of Historic Places, came on the market. It was just right.
ORONO — Out with the red and in with the blue. The University of Maine’s Hauck Auditorium is getting a makeover for the first time since it was built more than 40 years ago.
A fresh coat of bluish-purple paint, much-needed new seats and carpeting to match, and a new cobalt blue stage curtain are part of the $182,000 renovation project to update the once crimson-themed auditorium.
25 years ago — Aug. 13, 1990
BANGOR — They stood beneath gray skies, under a sea of colorful umbrellas, running their fingers along the white names on the cold, black panels. They would find a name, surround it, capture it on film and in memory.
They would clutch their children and their spouses as they walked along the length of the Moving Wall, scanning the 58,175 names and thinking of a generation missed.
At noon, the names of the more than 350 Maine servicemen killed or missing in action in Southeast Asia were read over a public-address system in Bass Park. Each name received a second or two of recognition from all, a little longer from those who gripped one or two of those names in their hand, traced from The Wall onto a slip of white paper.
BREWER — From blue-ribbon milk goats to champion female pool players, Trophy World has created awards to recognize noteworthy achievements throughout Maine. But customers of the 11-year-old company are beginning to see Trophy World products — specifically signs — in unusual places: in the corridors of hotels, on the control panels of machinery and in the utility rooms of large commercial buildings.
Trophy World was started by Dieter and Eleanor Heinz of Bangor. A native of West Berlin, Dieter Heinz left Germany in 1960 at age 22. He spent a year in Canada and then moved to California.
In 1963, Heinz arrived at Dow Air Force Base in Bangor and married Bangor native Eleanor Griffin. He was discharged from military service in 1966 and returned to California. But his wife preferred Bangor and the couple came back to Maine in 1970. His inspiration to start Trophy World came in 1977.
50 years ago — Aug. 13, 1965
BREWER — Frederick Olsen Sr., scoutmaster of Troop 15, Brewer, leaves today with his family for Philmont Scout Ranch, Cimarron, New Mexico, on an all-expense paid trip by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Olsen is one of four scoutmasters in the country to be given the honor. Scoutmasters are chosen, one from each VFW Council, of which there are four in the United States.
Scoutmaster Olsen, a past commander of the Isaac E. Clewley Post of Brewer, is the first chosen for the honor from the Department of Maine, VFW.
Making the trip with Olsen will be his wife, Virginia; Frederick Jr., a life Scout; Michael, a tenderfoot; and Jeffery.
OLD TOWN — The Penobscot Shoe Company has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington a prospectus for the sale of 270,525 common shares of the company on the over-the-counter market.
Of the shares offered for sale to the public are 90,000 common shares belonging to the company. This portion of the proceeds will be applied to the construction of additional warehouse space and corporate uses.
The proceeds from the remaining 180,525 share held by nine individuals will go to them.
BANGOR — The old city of Bangor is sleeping beneath the tarred pavement and the neon lighting of the new. The Queen City of the lumbering days when the river was a forest of tall-masted ships, and Exchange Street was the Wall Street of Maine is not dead, only sleeping.
The stately mansions along the river that once housed the pride of Bangor, now have fallen into disuse or are no more. Yet, on a night when the old city awakes, they seem to shudder and lift their proud, arching eaves to the murky sky, recalling perhaps, the time when they lorded over the lowly, crude, roughly built dwellings on the hills.
The new Bangor took the best of the old with it.
100 years ago — Aug. 13, 1915
BANGOR — A number of prominent businessmen have made plans for the erection of an immense cold storage plant — something Bangor has long needed. A centrally located lot near the tracks of the Maine Central Railroad and of the Charleston division of the Bangor Railway and Electric Company is available, and it is proposed to erect thereon a concrete and steel building which, with equipment, will cost not less than $100,000 — possibly more.
There is every reason to believe that such a plant would be a financial success from the start as it is demanded by numerous business firms and individuals. Swift and Co., Armour and Co., and other great packing firms have many times felt the need of greater facilities for storage here, and it is stated that vast quantities of perishable goods have been shipped to Portland and even to Boston for storage, at much expense and inconvenience to the packers and at a loss of no little revenue to the city.
BANGOR — Owing to the exceptionally small crop of apples, the fruit show which has been held annually for the past three years under the auspices of the Bangor Chamber of Commerce will not materialize this year.
According to University of Maine authorities, the apple crop will probably be less than 40 percent of the normal yield.
Orchardists in East Corinth, Newburgh, Winterport and Monroe have offered their assistance, but reports from each of these places were to the effect that displays to be compared with other years could not be gathered this season.
The exhibit in Bangor last November was pronounced the finest in the Maine Pomological Society’s history.
BREWER — Holyoke Square seems to be the section of the city which has received a generous share of improvements within a few months in the way of interiors and exteriors of buildings. Almost every building on the square and lower Center Street has had a new coat of paint on the outside and many have been improved by paint inside.
Harlow Brothers recently had the interior of their grocery store painted white, making an unusually clean and fine looking interior.
Woodbury’s store has just received a coat of paint on the outside.
Many changes have been made in the Hadley barber shop including the addition of a second chair and new furnishings.
Minor changes have been made in other buildings, giving a very neat appearance to the whole square of buildings.
Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin