(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Oct. 13, 1995

ORONO – With expansion plans already under way in Belfast and Brunswick, fast- growing credit card company MNBA may look to expand its Orono operations, a company spokesman said.

At a meeting of nearly 200 Bangor-area businesspeople, educators and community members, Shane Flynn, the head of the company’s New England operations, said MBNA has reviewed its current Orono operations center looking for an opportunity to grow. And although there are no expansion plans in the works, Flynn didn’t discount expanding the Orono center that employs as many as 400 people.

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BREWER – State Rep. Richard Campbell of Holden and Brian Higgins presented to the City Council a plan to create a new city park at the site of the former Christmas House.

The Christmas House, a brick structure that many believe served as a way station in the 1860s for the Underground Railroad, guiding black slaves to safety in Canada, recently was demolished to make way for a new interchange and bridge that is to be constructed from Bangor to Brewer.

Higgins came up with the idea of creating the park, which would include a statue honoring Brewer Civil War hero Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain.

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BREWER – The people of Prospect Avenue, Allen Road and Gilmore Street have petitioned the City Council to do something about the speed and volume of traffic on their streets.

James McDonald, who drafted the petition, said the hazard is unusual in that high-density housing has increased the volume of traffic on the three blocks. The danger is compounded by two curves of the hill that impair visibility and have contributed to one accident this year and several near-accidents.

McDonald said the roads were in need of resurfacing and that they were too narrow to accommodate pedestrian and two-way motor traffic.

25 years ago – Oct. 13, 1980

BANGOR – The Bangor Parks and Recreation Department now is operating from the new Community Center on Fourteenth Street.

Much of the move took place earlier this week. The senior citizen center is scheduled to move from the police station to the center at the beginning of next week, said Dale Theriault, parks and recreation director.

For the first time in the 13 years that Theriault has worked for the city, almost the entire parks and recreation department staff will be under a single roof, he said.

The center now has phone service through the City Hall switchboard during weekday business hours. A new outside line into the center for evening and weekend use will be installed next week.

Simultaneously with the move, the recreation department launched its new preschool program at the center.

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ORONO – The League of Women Voters of Orono, Old Town and Veazie is working with the Orono school system to provide voter education.

At Asa Adams School, league member members will be speaking to fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade classes on decision making in voting. Topics such as issues and campaigns will be discussed.

50 years ago – Oct. 13, 1955

BREWER – The Acadia Section of Girl Scouts will sponsor an Acadia Convention at the Brewer Auditorium in the spring. Nearly 1,000 Girl Scouts from Aroostook, Penobscot, Hancock, Washington, Waldo, Piscataquis and Somerset counties are expected to participate in the first all-Girl Scout convention ever held in the area.

Tentative plans for the event were set up at a meeting held at the home of Mrs. William Hinckley in South Brewer. The daylong event will feature community singing, group dancing, exhibits with demonstrations, and competitive sports and skills.

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BANGOR – Principal Joseph B. Chaplin called for the lengthening of the school day in order to accomplish more work at a meeting of the Bangor High School Parents’ Music Association held at the school.

Mr. Chaplin felt that the hours of school are too short to accomplish what is needed. He felt that there are too many extracurricular activities for the students to choose from and that they overload themselves. Here, he felt, is a place where parents can guide their children in choosing wisely and not taking on more extracurricular activities than they can handle with their regular classroom assignments.

Mr. Chaplin paid tribute to the work of Samuel Harris and Mrs. Myrle Coffey in the music work at the school. He felt that better choral groups could be established if boys who have fine voices would participate.

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BANGOR – Too many people today fail to distinguish between the standard of living and the standard of life, the Rev. W. Stanley Pratt, pastor of the First Baptist Church, told the Bangor Kiwanis Club.

Mr. Pratt keyed his Columbus Day address to the theme of “going ahead with courage,” and concluded with a reminder that “some things are greater than mankind, but some men don’t believe it.”

Life, the speaker said, is made up of “ingredients and attitudes,” and it is the attitudes that make the difference in what one gets out of life.

In a world that is confused and in turmoil, Mr. Pratt went on, it is easy to lose sight of the spiritual value in the quest for material security.

There is, he explained, nothing more secure than an oyster in its bed, or anything that must struggle more for life than the eagle, whose domain is the sky. “But it is the eagle, not the secure oyster, that is the symbol of this nation,” he said, adding, “life means more if you work for it.”

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BANGOR – Donald P. Johnston, superintendent of the Bangor Water Department, said that he will discontinue adding fluoride into the city water when he gets official word to that effect from the City Council.

Johnston said that it will take about two days for the fluorine to run off after they stop adding it to the water.

Fluoridation, which was voted into Bangor last fall, was defeated in the recent election.

100 years ago – Oct. 13, 1905

BUCKSPORT – Mrs. Margaret P. Witham cordially invites the public to her opening of the latest styles, and fall and winter millinery at her store on Main Street. Mrs. Witham also has a full line of hosiery of all kinds and sizes for all occasions, latest styles in winter gloves, also a very fine and attractive line of perfumery. With every purchase of perfumery, the purchaser is presented with a very handsome steel engraving.

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BUCKSPORT – Mrs. Rachel Wardwell of Verona is having her house re-clapboarded and other improvements made.

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BUCKSPORT – Captain Kendall of Bates College, who made the sensational 70-yard run in the game with Harvard at Cambridge, has many friends here who will be very glad over his skill. Mr. Kendall is an Orrington boy and a graduate of the EMC seminary.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin