I will probably always think of my grandmother as a small lady with snow-white hair who led a quiet life at our family farm homestead. But there was another side to Hattie Field Sargent. I got some insight about that other woman from a 56-year-old newspaper story of her “trip to the Wild West.” It […]
Dave Sargent
The river rampage of March 1936
The Androscoggin River was on an incredible rampage in late winter of 1936. A Lewiston Evening Journal headline on March 23, 1936, read “Jam Speeds By Lewiston — Bridges Are Saved.” A page one photo showed a man holding a pick pole as he stood atop a mass of floating debris and ice cakes at […]
Pettengill Park ice-skating memories
For many years on the day after Christmas, countless L-A youngsters (and adults) have brand-new ice skates to be tested at Auburn’s Pettengill Park. Of course, a lot depended on the weather. If it was a year with lots of cold days in December, the popular skating pond near the ball field would be crowded […]
Riverviews: The Evans Repeater, from Maine to the Wild West
For a small and quiet Maine town of the mid-1800s, Mechanic Falls had some fascinating connections with the Wild West and some other worldwide events. It all came about with the invention of the Evans rifle, an early lever-action repeating firearm. The story begins shortly after the Civil War, when George Evans, a Rhode Island […]