(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Sept. 25, 1993

OLD TOWN – A 10-acre demonstration forest designed by James River Timber Corp. allows children and students to see the differences between a clear cut and a selective cut, between a managed and unmanaged forest.

“It lets kids think about the environment. It doesn’t say a clear cut is good,” said Brent Halsey, president of James River Timber. “We want to show contrasting choices rather than tell them what is good.”

The company dedicated its Project Learning Tree Outdoor Classroom and Demonstration Forest with an open house for about 50 local teachers and people from the timber industry, the University of Maine and government agencies.

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GLENBURN – The Town Council has instructed the manager to send a letter to Gov. John McKernan asking for help to preserve or relocate an old cemetery. The cemetery is bordered on all sides by privately owned gravel pits.

Over the years so much gravel has been excavated from the area, said Town Manager Peter Chase, that the small cemetery stands in the midst of barren gravel pits rising 8 to 10 feet high, with a green mushroom cap of grass and trees, and a few unmarked gravestone markers constructed from old fieldstones.

Chase said town officials were alerted in 1992 of the problems at the cemetery by Phillip Megquier who was concerned by gravel excavation going on next to the site.

Chase said he inspected the site and placed a stop-work order on the excavation. The owner of the property complied.

The cemetery’s proximity to Kenduskeag Stream suggests it probably was associated with an early settlement constructed before roads were built, Chase said.

25 years ago – Sept. 25, 1978

BANGOR – Construction began on Eastern Maine Medical Center’s new parking lot across State Street.

The new lot will contain 142 spaces on land leased from the Wing Estate. Eastern Maine’s director of community relations and development, James B. Coffey, in a letter to the city’s planning board, said the new area “will be used for employee parking, principally during the day shift. The overwhelming majority of the cars will be parked in the morning and not moved until late afternoon.”

Employees will be shuttled to the hospital by bus, Coffey told the board. Access to the lot will be made through the present temporary lot at the Wing Estate, and the Wing Estate entrance off State Street.

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BANGOR – Have you ever tried to identify the hardware on great-grandmother’s desk but couldn’t find the proper resource book? Or maybe you’d like to know which periodicals on antiques would concentrate most on your special interests.

This year’s Bangor Antique Show to be held at the Bangor Municipal Auditorium will host a unique library exhibit and reference service on antiques designed to answer the show-goer’s questions.

Director of the Orono Public Library, Debe Baxter, and Sue White of the reference department of the Bangor Public Library will have a core reference collection from their respective libraries, as well as a browsing selection of their current materials on antiques.

50 years ago – Sept. 25, 1953

BANGOR – The members of Bangor YWCA voted Thursday night to alter their plans for building an indoor pool, concentrating for the present on an activities building, and at the same time to “work wholeheartedly wherever possible” to help the YWCA in their pool project.

At the outset of the business meeting, Mrs. Doris Rosen, chairman of the fall Get out the Vote Committee, presented the “Y” Chapter with a plaque from the American Heritage Foundation in recognition of its work during the fall elections.

Mrs. Philip Christmas, chairman of the Building Committee, explained to the YWCA members attending the Fall Membership Supper the reasoning behind the two recommendations which have reversed the YWCA’s long-range expansion program.

Originally, the YWCA had planned to construct an indoor pool on the lot behind its present building. Later, the plans called for the addition of a recreation building.

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BREWER – Oct. 23 was the date set for the annual fair at Second Congregational Church at a meeting of the Church Aid Society.

Mrs. Doris Atwood, vice president, presided. Committee chairmen are: aprons, Mrs. Doris Atwood; children’s booth, Mrs. Nellie Littlefield; homemade candy, Mrs. Lorraine Beatham; grab bag, Mrs. Abbie Niles; gift booth, Miss Dagny Erickson and Miss Mary Clark; fancy work, Mrs. Clara Mitchell; towels, Mrs. Minnie Harman and Mrs. Ruby Downes; ice cream, Mrs. Alice Laing; cooked food, Mrs. Hilda Floyd and Mrs. Gertrude Bragdon; supper, Mrs. Marion Elliott and Mrs. Florence Ganong.

Mrs. Agnes Miller was the devotional leader, with Mrs. Frances Clark at the piano.

100 years ago – Sept. 25, 1903

BANGOR – The first drill of the Bangor High School cadets will be held this forenoon in the school yard. The battalion this year will be the largest in the history of the school, and, if the statements of the officers can be taken as meaning anything, it will be the best.

There are about 150 men in the battalion – 80 from the freshman class, and 70 from the sophomore and junior classes. There will be three companies as last year, and with 150 men in the battalion, the cadets should make a fine showing. There are 10 commissioned officers and about 30 non-coms.

It is not known whether there will be a regular army drill, but the men will assemble in the new assembly hall and the orders will be read for the year. Capt. Symonds, 5th U.S. Cavalry, military instructor at the University of Maine, will talk to the boys. It is hoped that Capt. Symonds can be secured as military instructor at the high school during the year, and if this can be done, Bangor will have the best-drilled school boy soldiers in the state.

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OLD TOWN – On Monday the people will be given an opportunity of seeing a first-class and novel entertainment, and at the same time helping along a very deserving institution, one which will arouse the local pride and sympathy of all the loyal residents of the city.

In City Hall there will be an entertainment by the Colonial Moving Picture Co. for the benefit of the Old Town band. This show has exhibited in this section and is all right in every way, no doubt being the most elaborate and varied of the kind on the run.

No well-regulated city is complete without a band, and of course no city wants anything but a good band. A bad band is almost as bad as smallpox. It costs money to have a good band. Old Town has a band which has made a good start, and with a little help from the people will develop into an organization of which the city will be proud.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin