Yesterday …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Oct. 17, 1992

HOLDEN – The one-room schoolhouse that was moved to the front of the municipal building about 20 years ago may be getting a new life, said Holden Town Manager Larry Varisco this week.

When the structure was moved to the town-owned property, the original plan was to make it into some sort of school museum. However, over the years, little progress has been made in achieving that goal.

Recently the Farm and Home Museum at the University of Maine has expressed an interest in the old schoolhouse.

Hayden Soule, who is involved in the university project, has indicated to town officials that the UM group would be interested in moving the building to the university to be placed with other old buildings that have been moved to the campus in the past few years.

The selectmen decided it was a good idea, said the manager, and told Hayden to submit a proposal which will be presented to the voters of the community to seek approval for the move.

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HOLDEN – The new salt and sand shed foundation has been completed, said Town Manager Larry Varisco on Friday.

The backfilling has been completed and paving of the floor was expected to begin Friday afternoon or Monday.

Laminated wooden arches will be set on the foundation in the next few days, then the roof will be decked and the sides erected.

The low bidder for the project was Wood Associates, said the manager, but the town has been acting as the general contractor. Steve Crotey, of Crotey Construction, is working as the town’s site manager on both of the town’s construction projects, the salt and sand shed and the expansion at the municipal building.

25 years ago – Oct. 17, 1977

ORONO – Thirteen cadets enrolled in the U.S. Army ROTC program at the University of Maine at Orono have been designated Distinguished Military Students, according to UM president Howard R. Neville and Lt. Col. Joseph K. Brown, professor of military science.

These students represent the top third of this year’s 40-man commissioning class, and have been selected on the basis of academic merit, student participation in university activities and demonstrated leadership potential, said Brown.

Cadets appointed were Daniel Ahern, Holden, Mass.; Douglas Bennett, Hampden; Richard Brewer, Presque Isle; Stephen Brown, Presque Isle; Patrick Carpenter, Waterbury, Vt.; William Connor Jr., Weymouth, Mass.; Mark MacLean, Waterville; David Makowicki, Norwich Conn.; Patricia Minigell, Bridgton; Kevin Moore, Bangor; Mike Roddin, Old Town; David Toy, Waterville; Mark Rozychi, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Guy Williams, Waterville.

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ORONO – A University of Maine at Orono student, Michael Chaney of Wiscasset, has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Youth Grant to record the work of a Wiscasset photographer in the early 1900’s.

Chaney, who is a history major, will collect, reproduce, collate and prepare an exhibition of the work of Joseph E. Leighton, who was a photographer in the Wiscasset area from 1900 to 1930. Leighton’s work included photographs documenting the area, its people and their activities.

The Lincoln County Historical Association, which has a Leighton Collection, will provide some of the background for Chaney’s research which will also include an oral history. Chaney will receive university credit for his research as an independent study project.

It is expected that at the conclusion of Chaney’s project the exhibit will be shown on the Orono campus, the Maine State Museum and the Lincoln County Historical Society.

50 years ago – Oct. 17, 1952

OLD TOWN – A general denial was made here tonight that newspapers aid and abet crime and juvenile delinquency by publication of comics.

“It is insulting to present-day juveniles to say that they haven’t sense enough to get into trouble without outside help,” Delmont T. Dunbar, editor of the Bangor Daily News, told the local Rotary club.

“If there are more delinquent juveniles today than there were 20 years ago, you might bear in mind that there are 15,000,000 more juveniles in the United States today than there were then.

“Furthermore, we have a half-million more social workers, policemen, probation officers and judges to place brands of delinquency upon the kids for violating the several thousand more laws than we had in 1930.”

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ORONO – Miss Yolande Betbeze, Miss America of 1951, who has made the long jump from parades of pulchritude to political platforms, will deliver a campaign speech for Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman, Democratic candidates for president and vice president, at the University of Maine’s Louis Oakes room tomorrow night.

The meeting, which will open at 7:30 p.m., is under the auspices of the Young Democrats’ club at the university.

The Alabama beauty, who has been stumping the country in the interests of the Democratic Party, has confined her speaking primarily to college campuses.

100 years ago – Oct. 17, 1902

ORONO – Choppers are already well at work in the Maine woods and State Land Agent E.E. Ring of Orono says that when the season’s cut is footed up it will be found that it is fully as large as the last winter’s cut. It is thought that it might be somewhat reduced, but present indications point to a full cut.

“Times have changed,” says Mr. Ring, “and where a few years ago 10 men would cut a million apiece, one firm now goes in and cuts 10 million. The great pulp and paper mills must be fed and the cut cannot be much reduced from year to year with these mills doing the business they are today and plan to do in the future.

“There is a great scarcity of men, though wages continue to be top notch,” he continued. “The operators are sending the men into the woods as fast as they can get them, but men are scarce at any price. For woodsmen who a few years ago called it good pay when they received from $18 to $26 per month, the operators are now glad to offer from $26 to $40. The outsider might think that such an increase in wages would find plenty of men, but the fact is the operators are hard pushed for men enough to fill their early crews.

“The reason for it? Well, there are a number of things which work together to bring it about, I think. Years ago there used to be a large immigration of red-shirted lumbermen from the Provinces every fall, who came to work the winter out in the Maine woods. They came to Maine because the wages they commanded here were far in excess of what they could get at home. But things have changed in this respect. Today the Canadian mills are calling on for large quantities of lumber and the lumber operators have been obliged to raise their wage schedule to a point where the Canadian can make more money by staying at home. So we have lost him. He is one factor in the tightness of the market.”

Compiled by Matt Poliquin