100 Years Ago: 1925

A flaming gas meter in the cellar of a tenement occupied by Dr. Robert Brown, Sabattus Street, resulted in a call from the Lewiston Fire Department chemical crew Saturday night. The gas meter damage was all.

The doctor is said to have detected the odor of gas from the cellar and while investigating held a lighted match near the meter. Although no explosion resulted the gas ignited and fearing a serious fire might follow the chemical crew was called. The gas main was shut off and the fire extinguished.

50 Years Ago: 1975

Late Friday afternoon, Auburn’s Engine One and Snorkel One were dispatched to a house where there was reported trouble with a television set. In the morning, they responded to a call reporting smoke in a building which proved to be caused by an electric can opener.

25 Years Ago: 2000

Lewiston-Auburn College has so many students that professors are teaching in a former tennis court.

Each day the college staff turns on the heat in the afternoon to warm up the tennis court classroom, then turns off the heat before students come in. The heat can’t be left on, Dean Betty Robinson explains, because it’s so noisy no one could hear the lecture.

A proposal before the Legislature is asking $3.5 million to expand the L-A College, allowing it to teach more students. The request is part of a larger one-time $8.4 million proposal asking legislators to approve higher education expansions in Houlton, Fort Kent, Bangor, Calais as well as Lewiston.

The material used in Looking Back is produced exactly as it originally appeared although misspellings and errors may be corrected.