(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Sept. 18, 1998

BANGOR – Paul Bunyan Festival Days will begin today at Paul Bunyan Park on Main Street. The three-day celebration is designed to educate people about Bangor’s old lumbering industry.

This year, for the first time, Snow & Nealley of Hampden will sell limited editions of a double-bitted axe, the type of tool Paul Bunyan is supposed to have used.

25 years ago – Sept. 18, 1983

BANGOR – In line with a trend among hospitals nationwide, the board of trustees of St. Joseph Hospital has reorganized the hospital and its affiliated operations into a new corporate structure.

The change is a “matter of keeping pace with what is happening” in the health care industry and “it makes good sense,” said Sister Mary Norberta, who became president of the St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation, the parent corporation for the four subsidiaries set up under the new structure. She remains executive director of the hospital.

Less than a year ago, Eastern Maine Medical Center was reorganized into a holding company, Eastern Maine Healthcare, with subsidiaries including the medical center.

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BANGOR – The late Louis Striar will be honored posthumously by the Jewish Community of Bangor at its annual State of Israel Bonds dinner at the Red Lion Restaurant.

Israel’s 35th Anniversary Award will be presented to Mrs. Striar in recognition of her husband’s many years of leadership and service to the Bangor community and to the Jewish people here and in Israel.

Striar was president of Striar Enterprises. He founded the James Striar School at Yeshiva University and was a founder of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

50 years ago – Sept. 18, 1958

ORONO – Cornerstones for two University of Maine buildings were placed on Wednesday afternoon.

Dr. Lloyd H. Elliott, president of the university, said the new physics building and the new men’s dormitory “would be extremely useful in helping to solve the critical classroom and student housing problem at the university.”

The UM president pointed out that the university’s new physics building was one of 26 such structures being erected on campuses across the nation.

Copper boxes containing catalogs and booklets on the university, physics textbooks, newspaper clippings about the new buildings, miscellaneous coins and other items of possible interest to future generations were sealed in the cornerstones.

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BANGOR – The ancient Larkin Street School, the Longfellow School on Center Street and the Valentine School on Union Street would be abandoned according to recommendations of the new “Wilson Report” as soon as other facilities could be provided. The buildings are described as “inadequate” in the report.

The report also recommended that the present Bangor High School building on Harlow Street be abandoned in favor of a new building on the northern outskirts of the city. The report recommends that the city consider the old high school structure as a new city hall or combined city, county and state building.

100 years ago – Sept. 18, 1908

BANGOR – A bold attempt to burn a building filled with lodgers, in an inflammable location, was frustrated by the timely and unexpected arrival of a woman lodger in the one tenement that was vacant.

Three arrests were made immediately by Chief Bowen and Inspector Knaide. Gordon White, his brother William A. White, and their housekeeper whose name is withheld, are locked up in the police station.

The building is a three-story frame structure at the corner of Center Street and Prospect Hill and is divided into three tenements, of which White rented one as a lodging house.

The house is immediately adjacent to numerous other frame dwellings and boarding houses. Everything was dry as tinder and would have burned like powder.

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BANGOR – The “all out” for the wood yard fire was sounded at 4:22 p.m., just 24 hours and 20 minutes from the sounding of the first alarm. This breaks all records in the fire history of Bangor for the total elapsed time between the original alarm and the recall.

The firemen’s eyes were so swollen from the smoke and heat that they were almost closed.

John T. Mooney, driver of Hose 2, is the only one to have been badly burned during the fire. He is on leave with his hands and wrists in bandages. Mr. Mooney made the attempt to dash through the walls of the fire with his fast team of grays.

Halfway into the burning lane, however, the horses stopped, and in the few seconds before Mr. Mooney could turn them into an adjacent yard, his hands and wrists had been burned, his eyelashes and eyebrows singed off, the nigh horse singed and the left side of the handsome wagon stripped of its beautiful varnish.

The hose that had been laid was abandoned and lost, as the heat was withering and could not be withstood.

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EAST EDDINGTON – The village schools began the fall term with a larger attendance than has ever been recorded. The new principal of the high school is Miss Edna Carr of Dexter, and that of the grammar school is Miss Alice Keyes of Bucksport. An effort is being made by the school board to raise the standard of the school and it is hoped that before that, the course of study will equal those of any similar institution in the state.

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BUCKSPORT – Col. and Mrs. John Darling and Mrs. Darling’s sister, Miss Ella Hastings, left on the Boston boat for their new home in New London, Conn. The Darlings will be greatly missed in the town, as they were great lovers of music and had many social entertainments at their home.

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BREWER – The I.O.O.F. hall has been cleaned recently by the vacuum method and presents a much improved appearance with regard to furniture, hangings and carpets.

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OLD TOWN – Twelve members of last year’s graduation class of Old Town High School will enter the University of Maine. They are: Garland Emerson, Robert Bussell, Walter Perkins, Edith Folsom, Hazel Mariner, Charles Wood, Daniel McEachern, Phillip Garland, Edward Connors, Edward Sawyer and Benjamin Kent. All of the above-mentioned students attained good rank in their studies while in the high school and their friends expect them to bring glory to Old Town High by their work in the university.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin