(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Oct. 7, 1994

BANGOR – Switchboards at fire departments, police stations and the Bangor Daily News were lit up as bright as the sky over Bass Park as residents called to find out what was happening.

Around 9 p.m. the skies over Bangor crackled and flashed as representatives of Blue Hill Pyrotechnics Inc., its headquarters now at 78 Rice St., held a demonstration of fireworks for a captive audience of municipal officials in town for the annual convention of the Maine Municipal Association.

The purpose of the demonstration was to interest communities in including the company’s fireworks in any coming festivities.

The presentation was intended to demonstrate a sample of the many varieties, sizes and special effects that Blue Hill Pyrotechnics has to offer. The select viewing audience had a menu describing each one of the 76 fireworks shot.

Among the items displayed were an 820-shot crackling fountain cake, and a 104-shot lion and thunder cake. Some of the fireworks that went off had names like green peony and variegated peony.

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BANGOR – Christopher Zimmerman hasn’t even conducted his first concert as the music director for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, and already he’s giving out autographs. At the mall where Zimmerman attended a season kickoff party that included cake, music, face painting, balloons and banter with symphony organizers, he was the star. He’s new. He’s young. He has a sparkle that he clearly intends to put into his work.

But the big news is that Zimmerman is ready to move the symphony out of a transitional period and into a new era. He is the second youngest music director the symphony has ever had – the youngest was Horace Mann Pullen who conducted the symphony’s debut concert in 1896.

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BANGOR – It’s been around almost since the beginning of time, when humans first used rude stitches to hold animal hides together to wear when the weather turned cold. Through the years, home sewing has been done as a necessity. Today, it’s pure passion, especially for two women who have organized a local sewing guild.

“If you gave me two hours to use any way I choose,” says Louise Kirkland of Orrington, “I’d spend them in my sewing room.”

“I schedule my whole day around sewing,” confides Jacqi Flood of Veazie. “Everything else revolves around that.”

Back in August 1993, Kirkland and Flood organized the Bangor Area Sewing Guild as a support group for those who sew, hoping it would be a way for the seamstresses to share sewing tips, techniques and projects, and to make new friends.

“I knew of women who met in groups to do other types of crafts,” says Flood, “and I envied their camaraderie.”

Convinced that there was a need for seamstresses in the area to assemble, she contacted the American Sewing Guild for information on how to start a local group and then recruited Kirkland’s help. Together they spread the word and their first meeting yielded a gratifying 12 people.

25 years ago – Oct. 7, 1979

BANGOR – It was gratifying to many area interests when in December 1976, the Economic Development Administration announced that a 100 percent construction grant of $1.7 million had been awarded to the city of Bangor for construction of the Civic Center.

Many parties, including local citizens, businessmen and public officials, and the Eastern Maine Development District had a role in the planning and development efforts which preceded funding of the project by E DA.

The realization of the center is the result of years of planning. Since 1973 Eastern Maine Development District staff has been working with city officials to develop and fund this complex. The board of directors of the district has over the years given this project high priority in its overall economic development plan for the six-county area which they represent, which includes Penobscot, Piscataquis, Waldo, Knox, Hancock and Washington counties.

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HAMPDEN – Word was received Friday that the former ammunition annex in Hampden has been officially declared surplus by the U.S. General Services Administration, the Hampden town manager said.

R. Lewis Bone said the town, county and state each have 20 days in which to say if they have an interest in acquiring the ammunition area. The town sent a letter explaining its interest in advance of receiving the official notification from GSA that the property was available, Bone said.

The ammunition annex includes 440 acres and 29 buildings located in East Hampden near the Bangor line.

50 years ago – Oct. 7, 1954

BUCSKPORT – The mill visitation class in the pulp and paper program at the University of Maine has visited the St. Regis pulp and paper mill in Bucksport. Twenty-two seniors and graduate students made the trip and inspected one of Maine’s most modern paper mills.

Richard Estabrook of St. Regis guided the class through the plant and answered many questions about the processes used at the mill.

The class visits a mill one week and the students write complete reports of the visit which are presented to the instructor the following week when the class meets to discuss the visit. By the end of the first semester, the students will have visited and written reports about eight well-known pulp and paper mills in Maine.

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BANGOR – A daily newspaper is the “heartbeat of the community,” Andrew J. Pease, advertising director of the Bangor Daily News, told members of the Kiwanis Club.

Pease, whose appearance before the organization marked Kiwanians’ observation of National Newspaper Week, Oct. 3-9, stated that newspapers, with their circulation of 54 million each day in this country, are a healthy industry.

“People spend more money for their newspaper than everything else they read,” the advertising director asserted. Although there has been “a terrific mortality rate” among papers lately, the 1,785 that remain are “healthier and stronger than ever before,” he continued. The local newspaper, said Pease, “covers the interests of everybody in the town. A paper is the conscience, and the mirror of the town.” People, he said, depend on their daily newspaper for information about themselves, their neighbors and the world around them.

100 years ago – Oct. 7, 1904

BANGOR – Mayor Beal returned on the three o’clock train yesterday afternoon from New York, where he spent the past few days on business. During a conversation with a News reporter on the way over, in response to a question as to whether he was really going to move away from Bangor, he replied most emphatically that he was not.

“I love Bangor and Bangor people and I have no intention of leaving,” he said. “The report published several months ago to that effect was without foundation. Bangor is a good city, there are few that are better.”

His Honor is looking in the pink of condition and was apparently enjoying every breath he breathed. He will remain in Bangor now for the winter although he will run down to his summer home at Islesboro once or twice before the end of the season.

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BUCKSPORT – There were 15,729 pieces of mail matter delivered on the route No. 1 of the rural free delivery for the quarter beginning July 1 and ending Sept. 30. The number of pieces delivered on route No. 2 for the same quarter was 3,190.

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BANGOR – It is quite a fad nowadays for actresses to make a collection of imitation jewelry. Not long ago an article appeared in the New York Herald naming the women who had many beautiful stage jewels.

Mildred Holland, who comes to Bangor on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, has the largest and most beautiful collection of stage jewels in the country. When she was in Russia last season she was allowed, through the courtesy of the czar, who through the influence of Prince Walkonsky, received her request to make drawings of all the famous Russian court jewels, some of which are never shown except at times of coronation of a czar.

These are the jewels Miss Holland wears in the throne room scene as Catherine II, better known as Catherine the Great, in “The Triumph of an Empress.” The jewels will all be on exhibition in one of the store windows on the day of Miss Holland’s appearance here in Bangor.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin