100 years ago, 1917
The 20-Mule Borax Team is coming to Lewiston on its great tour from coast to coast. They are coming here with all the panoply and extraordinary investiture of this historic exhibition of the thrilling life of the earlier far west and Lewiston will see the great desert caravan for the last time. It is the only one on earth and other roads have superseded the big strings for commercial purposes.
50 years ago, 1967
(Photo Caption) Mrs. Edward Kilby, 65 School Street, Auburn, has a healthy, blooming cotton boll. The bloom measuring approximately three inches across, began to flower last evening and was in full flower this morning. Several buds are ready to follow. The plant was grown from a cotton seed taken from one of three cotton bolls sent to Mrs. Kilby last fall by a Texas pen pal. Mrs. Kilby admits that its growth presented a couple of challenges. She helped it follow the sun moving it from window to window since last March.
25 years ago, 1992
In 1989 when Walter Sargent was recuperating from an illness, he built a boat model. Based on a 1943 houseboat with a paddlewheel, he felt a lot better when he finished the model. Now, three years later, a full-size, 28-foot stern-wheeler stands in his front yard at 636 North River Road, Auburn, with the matching model perched on its deck. He’s hoping to launch it in the Androscoggin River in the next couple of weeks to take friends out for short day cruises. Sargent, 81, is a former Auburn city employee, farmer and shoemaker. He also writes poetry and has built three sailboats before, though he has never tackled a boat with an engine. The boat is called “Sure Cure.” Sargent said, “I have a little touch of arthritis, but when I’m working on this, it cures it.” He has had a lot of help from his son, James Sargent, and friends. One friend had an oak tree blow down in his yard and allowed Sargent to cut the timber to use to build the frame and the paddle. After he built the boat’s hull in an upside-down position, neighbors came to help him turn it over to continue the work.
The material in Looking Back is reproduced exactly as it originally appeared, although misspellings and errors made at that time may be corrected.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
