Yesterday …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – June 23, 1995

BANGOR – When Fisher-Rosemount, the world’s largest supplier of valves and control equipment, was looking last year for a location for a new sales, service and distribution center, the city of Bangor caught its eye.

The city was located within an hour of a majority of the company’s customers in Maine and offered access to well-trained workers from local colleges and fast shipments through an international airport. What helped clinch the deal was that Bangor officials worked with the company, providing aid in selecting a site and in getting the operations up and running.

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BANGOR – Television comes to Speedway 95 when WABI-TV of Bangor broadcasts the Carquest Late Model Sportsman 100.

“We were just talking about it one day. I came up with the idea and kicked it around with one of the racers that I knew,” said Steve Hiltz, programming director at WABI-TV. “We’re excited about it. I don’t think live and local stock car racing has ever been broadcast in this market.”

Using five cameras for its one-hour coverage, WABI will be venturing into new territory.

25 years ago – June 23, 1980

BANGOR – Bangor’s 20-year-old Dave Brown, leading a prestigious NEWS-sponsored Paul Bunyan Amateur Golf Tournament entering the final 18 holes, survived a double-bogey seven on the fourth hole at Bangor Municipal Golf Course. He sank a 9-foot birdie putt on the 53rd hole in the 54-hole event to break a three-way deadlock to capture the event by one stroke with a 217.

He fired an even-par 72 to hold on for the title.

All of the drama in this one centered on Brown, defending champion Mark Plummer of Augusta and Bob Girvan of Kenduskeag after the new titleist mushroomed to his seven on the par-5 fourth. Girvan tied for the lead with Brown at that point and Plummer was shot back.

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BANGOR – A New York City native has been named manager of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra.

Daniel B. Priestley, BSO president, announced that Karen R. Pellon will assume her duties in August.

A professional dancer until a knee injury ended her career, Mrs. Pellon was for five years a scholarship student at the Joffrey Ballet School.

She switched to arts management in 1972, starting as a lecture agent with the W. Colston Leigh Agency in New York. She became the operations coordinator for the Joffrey Ballet in 1979.

50 years ago – June 23, 1955

BREWER – Brewer teachers will return to school in September with a raise in pay, according to Superintendent of Schools Albert E. Pillsbury. He announced that the superintending school committee has voted a raise for the 72 teachers in the Brewer system. Salaries will be increased between $25 and $300, depending upon training and length of service in the school system.

The plan recently approved by the school system has increased the various steps in the teachers’ salary schedule from $75 to $100.

The Brewer salary schedule at present contains 12 separate increments of $75 each. New teachers with a bachelor’s degree start at $2,650 a year and can advance in 12 steps to a maximum salary of $3,550.

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BANGOR – In the past 84 years, five presidents of the United States have visited Bangor during their terms of office.

Newspapers of the day joined the people in putting on great demonstrations to welcome the distinguished visitors when they were overnight guests in the city, and whole issues of the paper were devoted to chronicling every facet of the celebrations.

Presidents Harrison, Arthur and William Howard Taft were acclaimed by shouting throngs on their visits here, and Bangor welcomed a multitude of strangers on each occasion, gathered here to see the great men.

The first president to visit Bangor was Ulysses S. Grant, whose trip from Boston to Bangor in October 1871 was considered a great success.

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BANGOR – Dow Air Force Base officers and the Bangor steering committee arranging for the public appearance of President Eisenhower at the Dow AFB are busy with the final details for the welcoming of the chief executive at Bangor’s Strategic Air Command installation.

The general public is asked to use the Union Street gates at Dow. Base officials urge people to come early so that cars can be parked and people will be on the line before the president arrives.

Mrs. Doris Rosen of the welcoming committee went to Rowantree’s Potteries in Blue Hill to select a few additional pieces for the luncheon set which will be given to President Eisenhower for Mrs. Eisenhower from the Third Congressional District of Maine.

Mrs. Eisenhower has specified a preference for black and gray pottery, and so the set is mirror black and seagull gray, which will look perfectly stunning with a bright table cover in aqua, flamingo or yellow.

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BANGOR – As summer work and play gets under way, the attention of Bangor residents is called to the proper name of the area commonly known as the Newbury Street playground. The official name is the J.W. Williams Playground. The area has been officially the J.W. Williams Playground since July 6, 1939, but it is seldom called that.

Mrs. Hazel Doyen, immediate past president of the James W. Williams Unit, American Legion Auxiliary, chose as a project the rededication of the playground by its proper name.

The name should catch on easily, if it becomes generally known among children who play in that area, that James W. Williams was one of Bangor’s heroes who was killed in the World War I, and that in his childhood days, he attended Newbury Street School and played in the playground that now bears his name.

100 years ago – June 23, 1905

VERONA – The steamer Verona will make her first afternoon run of the season to Verona Park, leaving Bangor at 2 o’clock, and it is likely a large party will participate in this first public excursion. Twenty-five cents pays for the afternoon’s sail.

For several years past, Bangor people have been growing to realize the advantages of Verona Park as a near-at-hand summer resort. It is so easy of access to the city that it can almost be called a suburb, yet is sufficiently isolated to meet the requirements of one who wishes to forget the cares of business.

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BANGOR – And still they skate. The daily attendance at the skating rink is very large and shows every indication of remaining so. The management has spared no expense to make the sport popular and the appointments of the Bangor rink are second-to-none in the state. Manager Moulton has ordered an enormous blackboard for the purpose of scoring the various races.

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ORRINGTON – What was thought to be white whales seen passing up the river probably are the same fish recently seen at Bucksport and pronounced porpoises. Frank Rogers, who has a number of salmon nets and weirs, saw them and followed them quite closely as he was afraid they might destroy some of his nets, but the two big fellows kept to the middle of the river and did no damage.

Capt. William L. Quinn, who spent a number of years as a young man in the whaling business, said when the fish were described to him that they were probably “cow fish,” which he says is a specie of the porpoise, larger and often white. Quinn is an old Provincetown whaler and an authority on deepwater fish. He says there are two probable reasons for the fish going up the river. One is following small fish for food, probably alewives. The other reason is that they may have gone into fresh water for the purpose of killing the lice on their bodies, with which they often become infested, and can only rid themselves by going onto a bar in shoal water, up some fresh-water river.

– Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin