10 years ago – Sept. 2, 1994

(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

BANGOR – In the early morning light, a city crew moved to a new home the bell which once hung in the old Bangor City Hall, torn down in 1969.

Using a borrowed crane, the crew hoisted the 3,000-pound bell from its resting place in front of City Hall. The bell was moved a few hundred feet to a new location south of City Hall.

The bell now sits on a small triangular plot, which replaced a worn and often muddy parking area between Park and Harlow streets. Three flagpoles will soon join the bell on the plot, known as East Market Square, which will be landscaped and planted with flowers.

The bell was moved to a more prominent spot so more of the city’s residents will get a glimpse of Bangor’s past.

The bell was first rung on July 4, 1894.

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HAMPDEN – The rank of Eagle Scout was awarded to brothers Jason and Jonathan Syversen of Hampden in a ceremony at Abundant Life Church in Bangor. The sons of Mort and Marion Syversen of Hampden, Jason and Jonathan are members of Boy Scout Troop 88 in Lamoine and continued their affiliation even after they moved to Hampden in 1992.

For their Eagle projects, Jason, 17, planned and completed handicapped accessibility to the restroom at the Abundant Life Church. Jonathan, 15, made the entrance to the church accessible for the handicapped.

The Syversens are home-schooled, and Jason is entering his freshman year at the University of Maine in the College of Engineering. Jonathan is a junior and takes some classes at Hampden Academy while continuing to be home-schooled.

25 years ago – Sept. 2, 1979

BANGOR – When a Malaysian student stopped in at the Penobscot County sheriff’s office looking for a place to stay, Sgt. Carl Andrews learned a few things about Bangor’s accommodations for the indigent.

He made about a dozen telephone calls on the boy’s behalf and discovered that unless a person is sick, drunk, on drugs or under arrest, there isn’t much available in the way of free accommodations.

Rooms for the indigent traveler have grown increasingly scarce in recent years. Ten years ago, the Salvation Army and the Bangor Rescue Mission both put people up for the night, and provided meals.

The Salvation Army’s rooms were a victim of urban renewal. The Bangor Rescue Mission gave up its rooms for indigent transients last April.

50 years ago – Sept. 2, 1954

BANGOR – The Bangor Kiwanis Club has made arrangements for 2,000 youngsters to tour Dow Air Force Base to mark Kids Day, sponsored by Kiwanis International.

Kiwanis officials said that the youngsters participating in the program will be from 8 to 12 years of age. Parents or guardians must sign slips, which were passed out in the public and parochial schools, permitting their children to go. The tour of Dow Field will include an inspection of jet planes and pilots in flying gear, a demonstration of firefighting equipment, and a tour of many points of interest such as the hangars and runways.

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BANGOR – A huge piece of machinery, part of the equipment being used in the Great Northern Paper Co.’s expansion program, passed through Bangor early Thursday afternoon on its trip from Quincy, Mass., to East Millinocket.

The machinery was described by company officials as the bottom members of one of the huge digesters being erected at the East Millinocket plant. It was being hauled by truck on a specially equipped trailer, which required a police escort through heavy traffic.

The massive machinery was built at the Quincy plant of the Bethlehem Steel Corp. and is 20 feet long and 18 feet wide. Truck transportation was the only means possible to transport it to the site of the new plant, officials said, since it is too big to be shipped by rail. Two more similar pieces are expected to pass through the city later in the month.

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BANGOR – Police Chief John B. Toole of the Bangor Police Department announced the appointment of four new women as traffic guides for duty at crossings near schools when classes resume after the summer recess.

The new guides are Mrs. Helen Frost, 233 Palm St., who has been assigned to Forest Avenue and State Street; Mrs. Alice McGlaufin, 725 South Park St., will have the Broadway housing development post; Mrs. Lucille Buckley, 98 Court St., Valentine School, Union Street; and Mrs. Christine Chadbourne, 15 Sidney St., will be at Main and Cedar streets.

In completing the traffic guide organization for the school year, Chief Toole commented on the great assistance the program has been to the police department, pointing out that before the guide system went into effect several downtown beats had to be stripped of officers at intervals during the day to protect youngsters at crossings.

100 years ago – Sept. 2, 1904

BANGOR – Lovers of music, pantomime and scenic effects will have a treat in the production of “Eight Bells,” which will open at Bangor Opera House for an engagement of two nights and one matinee. This species of entertainment, especially the trick property part of it, has an abiding hold upon theater-goers of high and low degree and helps to prove the assertion that we are all children when the appropriate moment comes around.

“Eight Bells” in its rejuvenated state is one of the funniest works of its class and barring a slight tendency to give the susceptible spectator an attack of sea sickness is thoroughly enjoyable. The play is certainly inclusive enough in the variety of amusement it offers in the course of the evening. It contains a burlesque, a farce, a musical comedy, a pantomime and a spectacular production.

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BANGOR – This is the last season of the Bangor Piano school. As was announced in this paper yesterday morning, teaching for the present season will be begin Sept. 6, Mr. and Mrs. Mariner having returned from their vacation. Yesterday morning, however, Mr. Mariner’s friends received cards announcing the fact that the season of 1904-5 would be the last for the Bangor Piano school, and he was to move to New York the early part of September 1905.

While in Bangor, Mr. Mariner has done much for music in Bangor and in eastern Maine. He has made a large number of friends and there will be personal as well as professional regret at his withdrawal.

Arthur Beaupre, whom he has introduced, will probably go to New York with Mr. Mariner for further study.

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BANGOR – Mrs. H.A. Wentworth, city missionary, conducted her fourth and last trip to Riverside yesterday. Eight-nine children were in the party, which occupied special cars. As usual, the afternoon was most enjoyable and the little people came back filled with peanuts, soda water and gratitude. T.R. Savage and Co. furnished the peanuts, and Thurston and Kingsbury chipped in with paper bags to hold them, and candy.

Mrs. Wentworth was especially grateful to the Public Works Company for its kindness in furnishing transportation. But this isn’t remarkable to anybody who comes to know Manager Graham. He has two hobbies – electric railroading and children and what he will not do for the little folks isn’t down in the almanac. Whenever a gang of kids is gathered and a car isn’t working and the manager is around, somebody gets a ride.

The trips are an innovation and have been fully appreciated by all the poor children who have been taken on them.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin