Yesterday …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Nov. 29, 1997

BANGOR – Two state agencies and a nonprofit training firm are combining their functions in a new employment center that, if all goes as planned, will open in March in a former downtown bank building.

The consolidation is part of a larger statewide effort to pull together job training and job matching services that have traditionally been run separately. In Bangor, the new One Stop Employment Center will be housed in the former Maine National Bank of Bangor building, located at One Merchants Plaza, between Pickering Square and West Market Square.

25 years ago – Nov. 29, 1982

ORONO – Travis, “the Wonder Dog,” likes to bring a copy of his favorite daily newspaper to his boss, Carol Chamberlain. She says it’s great having Travis, a Belgian sheep dog, around to retrieve everything from newspapers to lost household items and old shoes.

50 years ago – Nov. 29, 1957

ORONO – What has happened to varsity basketball at the University of Maine?

While other major sports at the state university have enjoyed successful campaigns over the past few years, the round ball situation has taken a decided turn for the worse.

Here are the cold hard statistics:

Going into the 1950-1951 season, Maine varsity basketball teams were five games over the .500 mark on their all-time record. However, through the past seven seasons, the Black Bears have dropped 40 games below .500, losing 86 of 127 ball games. The over-all mark is now 146 victories and 286 defeats.

The Black Bears have won the state title five times and twice have tied for first place. Colby has tucked away the championship 11 times and tied for two, while Bates has one State Series pennant.

Maine stands below .500 against Colby, but is ahead of Bates and Bowdoin in the over-all series picture.

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BANGOR – The Bangor City Council is studying a report submitted by the City Manager Joseph R. Coupal Jr. The report is a summary of the major activities of the city during 1957 and review of the major capital and operational problems facing the city at the present time.

Coupal lists some of the major programs which the city completed in 1957:

. The second phase of a four-year expansion program at the City Hospital was completed with the addition of 15 approved beds on the second floor wing.

. Hancock Street was reconstructed from Carr to Newbury Street. Other streets were repaved, extended or surfaced.

. The Public Works Committee approved construction of 20-600 feet of sidewalks. But the amount of sidewalks built almost hit the 20,000 figure.

. The city installed mercury vapor lights along Harlow Street to Spring Street and continuing up Hammond Street and State Street hills. Abbott Square will be lighted before the end of the year.

Unquestionably the two major problems facing the city are schools and wages. An elementary school is urgently needed and work is in progress on this problem.

One of the new councilors was heard to remark that he didn’t realize how much reading there was to be done as a councilor.

The report runs to 17 pages complete with graphs, charts and columns of figures.

100 years ago – Nov. 29, 1907

CARMEL – It is a moment, train dispatchers and operators will tell you, that hastens gray hairs – the realization that two powerful trains, because of an error in delivering an order, are hurling themselves at each other through the night on a single track.

The word of the crash came from Carmel, just where they thought it would be, and the doctors and rescuers went scurrying away.

The trains were traveling at 30 or 40 miles per hour. The brave drivers threw their gears into reverse and jammed throttles before they hurled themselves through the cab windows. All the men of both crews jumped.

They were stunned and broken and shocked and the riderless trains leaped into one another’s clashing embraces with a roar that could be heard for two miles. And all but poor Symonds were lying safe beside the tracks – he was caught by some flying pieces of wreckage and sucked into the vortex of the iron storm.

For a space of 200 feet the track was torn up, and cars were broken into kindling wood. The locomotives, 276 and 264, are crushed half way into each other and are locked so tightly that they could not be moved. A railroad man told a reporter that it might take explosives to split them apart.

It was one of the most complete examples of destruction that has ever been seen in Maine railroading. That anybody came out alive is a marvel.

As soon as possible after the crash, when it was realized that quite a number of trainmen had been injured, word was sent to Bangor and several physicians were sent out on a special train. The party consisted of Doctors Peters, Sanger and Murphy. They rendered temporary aid to the injured and accompanied them back to Bangor where they were taken to the Eastern Maine hospital for treatment.

Although first reports had it that more than a dozen cars had been smashed and derailed, subsequent investigation showed that the accident was much more serious than was first reported. Forty loaded freight cars were derailed and hurled into the bog by the side of the track, where they were partially embedded and exceedingly difficult to handle.

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HAMPDEN CORNER – The New England Telephone and Telegraph Co. have been putting in new poles where needed and doing other work for the past week at this village.

Mr. Daniel Whitmore has bought the store here known as the Tribou store and will convert it to a paint shop.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin