Already good progress has been made on the Mechanic Falls line, and the first week in June actual work of preparing the road bed from Sabattus to Augusta will begin.
This line when completed will be the connecting link between Lewiston in Androscoggin Valley and Gardiner and Augusta in Kennebec Valley. It will bring Lewiston almost an hour nearer Augusta than it has been heretofore and will also open up a prosperous farming and summer resort section. It will be the source of a large amount of new business for Lewiston merchants, and verily Lewiston will be the trading center of central Maine.
50 years ago, 1957
• Thousands of Lewiston-Auburn residents turned out in comfortable temperatures yesterday to witness colorful parades as the two cities put on their annual Memorial Day exercises, joining other people across the nation in paying tribute to the war dead.
• It was a “quiet” Memorial Day in Lewiston. Not a single auto accident was reported to police. There were comparatively few complaints, said Capt. James F. Murphy.
Only one person was booked. This was a sailor slated to appear in court today on a charge of operating an unregistered motor vehicle.
25 years ago, 1982
• Mother Nature may have tossed a wet blanket on the traditional start of Maine’s summer tourist season, but most vacationers still made the annual Memorial Day weekend pilgrimage, according to officials around the state.
A total of about 27,000 vehicles came through the toll booth between Friday afternoon and mid-afternoon Saturday, according to a dispatcher.
• The consumption of gasoline in Maine has had its ups and downs since the 1973 Arab oil embargo. At the same time, motorists of this state set a very good example of gasoline conservation. The results were so good, in fact, that the Maine Department of Transportation has been suffering financial woes from the decline in gasoline taxes.
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