My train of thought takes some unpredictable detours.

This week, I was reading about early Auburn and the history of a downtown store. Before long, I was making connections to one of my favorite comic book racks in the late 1940s and to some local music-making of world-class caliber.

You’ve seen the name carved in granite on the large brick building at the intersection of Court and Main streets in Auburn: Goff Block. That name commemorates James Goff, who opened one of Auburn’s first mercantile establishments, but his land holdings spread his name a bit further. You can see a sign for Goff Street just a short way up Court Street. Actually, he got two streets. Nearby James Street was also named for him, and Charles Street was named for a son. The steep hill beyond has long been known as Goff Hill.

James Goff had been a trader in the Stevens Mills area around 1820. Two years later, the Goff family moved into the city proper, which was basically a straggling hamlet. Goff went into business with his brother-in-law, Jacob H. Read, but he soon bought his partner out.

The Goff and Read store near the falls and the bridge to Lewiston was a country store located in what was then still a country place.

Dana Goff was a young boy at the time his father’s store was in operation. He recalled those days in a Lewiston Journal article more than 100 years ago.

“O, yes, I can well remember those old days in Auburn” he said.

Rum and molasses were principal products sold in a country store in those times.

“My father quit selling rum in 1835, ” Dana Goff recalled.

“This was a strange thing for a trader in those days to do, but I will tell you how it happened. He had built a two-story addition to his place in 1830 and, from that time on, his trade was increased. In 1835 he was elected to the Legislature, and he employed William R. Frye (an uncle of William P. Frye, Lewiston mayor and a U.S. senator from Maine for 30 years) to run the store during his absence.”

Frye, a strict temperance advocate, took charge of the store. He didn’t want to sell rum, and Goff agreed.

“It astonished everybody, but not a drop was sold in our store after that,” the younger Goff said.

Dana said his father didn’t like to sell rum himself, “so it was a good excuse and a good chance to drop out of the business entirely, but here comes the funny part of the thing.

“When it was found that they could get no more liquor at the store, the temperance people came to father and wanted him to keep some for medicine. He knew that if he did, they would be sick altogether too often, and he refused. He wouldn’t have anything to do with it.”

Twenty years later, Goff’s store closed.

“When the specialty store came in, father went out,” the younger Goff said. “He had accumulated considerable property and was considered well off for those times.”

I don’t know just when or how the old store became the multi-story brick Goff Block. In my memory, it was the site of the Anderson and Briggs Drug Store. I tagged along often when my parents stopped in, and the revolving comic book rack was my favorite spot to wait while a prescription was filled. My collection of comic books – probably hundreds – is long gone, but I still have a “Howdy Doody” number from the early 1950s and a couple of Classics Illustrated editions.

In the early 1970s, I found myself among the brick arches of the building’s basement. It was a newly renovated area used as a nightclub called The Cellar Door. I watched and listened in amazement to the delicate harmonics and intricate jazz phrases woven by Lenny Breau, a Lewiston native who was getting a national reputation. Though his troubled and too-short life silenced his musical genius, his recordings still enjoy world-wide recognition.

Now, just below that granite Goff Block inscription on the corner hangs The Midnight Blues Club and Restaurant sign.

Yes, they serve rum there, and a lot of excellent music is made by top blues musicians who are booked regularly.

From country store to nightclub, I can’t help wondering if that building may sometime take a place among the country’s iconic jazz clubs like The Blue Note in Chicago or the hot spots near 18th and Vine in Kansas City.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and an Auburn native. You can e-mail him at dasargent@maine.com.

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