YESTERDAY …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Sept. 25, 1998

BANGOR – The line of people waiting to enter the new Ames Department Store at the Airport Mall started forming at 8:30 a.m. It snaked along the front of the building, turned a corner, proceeded through the back parking lot and toward the grass.

Ames opened its second Bangor-area store, its 302nd store nationally, in the former Rich’s building on Union Street.

The line was similar to that of people waiting to buy concert tickets. The Bill Nadeau Dixieland Band played at the entrance, but there were no celebrities – professional wrestler Sgt. Slaughter will be there this evening and former Boston Bruin Cam Neeley visits Saturday afternoon.

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BANGOR – You wouldn’t expect to see smiles on the faces of Russian doctors. When you consider that almost all of Russia’s hospitals are owned by the government – a government that is now in political disarray – it can’t bode well for doctors or patients in that country.

Still, the two Russian doctors visiting Maine this week seemed buoyed – downright jubilant – about what they’ve seen while visiting Maine Medical Center in Portland and St. Joseph Hospital and Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

They are reciprocating a visit made in June by Sister Mary Norberta, president and CEO of St. Joseph Hospital. Sister Norberta visited St. Petersburg as part of a humanitarian mission in which $10,000 in donated medical supplies were sent to St. George Hospital via the State of Maine, Maine Maritime Academy’s training vessel.

25 years ago – Sept. 25, 1983

HAMPDEN – A new 1-cent stamp honoring Dorothea Dix was issued from Hampden, where the social reformer and humanitarian was born in 1802. Dix exposed the shocking conditions under which mentally ill persons were confined in the 1840s, and worked to change those conditions.

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BANGOR – It was 1:30 a.m. on a summer night in 1923. Hugh McKenzie’s alarm had just jarred him awake. He rose, and a few minutes later was on the street, headed on foot for the barns of Getchell Ice, his employer.

By 2:35 a.m., he had a pair of horses cleaned and harnessed, and was headed for the ice house near the Bull’s Eye Bridge on Kenduskeag Stream. It was about a 45-minute ride through the cool pre-dawn air for the 20-year-old McKenzie, who had joined the company just a few weeks earlier.

At the ice house, the work began in earnest. Fifty- and 100-pound blocks had to be loaded into the cart for delivery to 700 customers along the route.

For many years during the late 1800s, the Penobscot River had yielded the best ice on the eastern seaboard. The strong winds of the region almost guaranteed the clear “blue ice” that boats from around the world came for. At one time there were 80 ice companies between Bangor and Bucksport.

Once loaded with ice, the young McKenzie would head his horses back toward Bangor, arriving at 6 a.m.

The restaurants had to receive delivery first, then residential customers. His route included Hancock, York, State, Pearl, Fern and Fruit streets.

McKenzie worked 100 hours a week for $24 in winter, $27 in summer.

50 years ago – Sept. 25, 1958

OLD TOWN – The city of Old Town has a “pen pal” from whom it received a second letter sent from Tokyo, Japan. The missive was translated from Japanese for City Manager John Bibber. Bibber had answered the first letter some weeks ago.

The “pen pal” is a 29-year-old Japanese citizen who has taken a special interest in Old Town for its proximity to the University of Maine. He states that he would like to study at the university.

The letter writer, Mitsuo Saso, has a huge problem, that of finding a sponsor necessary for his entry into the United States.

In his first letter, Mitsuo explained that he already had worked his way through college. He wrote that he had a teaching degree in history.

Bibber said he could think of no plan at present to find Mitsuo a sponsor.

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OLD TOWN – Mrs. Kenneth Lovejoy, assistant home demonstration agent for Penobscot County, spoke on “Saving Health and Food Dollars through Wise Planning” at a supper meeting of the Old Town Homemakers Club.

Mrs. Lovejoy spoke on malnutrition, the need of calcium for bone structure and the daily need of milk in the diet. She told the group that an adequate breakfast should consist of one-third of the day’s diet. She offered a number of suggestions to stretch the food dollar.

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BREWER – A huge, 12-ton dump truck loaded with gravel careened out of control on Route 15 in South Brewer and smashed through the concrete and steel abutment over Segeunkedunk Stream. The vehicle hung precariously over the edge of the embankment while the driver scampered to safety.

The driver, L.W. Daniels, 29, of Newton, Conn., told police that a blowout on the right front tire occurred as the vehicle was negotiating a sharp turn just south of the stream.

The truck veered to the right side of the road, jumped the curbing and crashed into the bridge abutment, which disintegrated under the force of the impact and fell into the stream. The rear end of the truck dangled over the steep embankment.

A crew of men, using a heavy crane borrowed from the Brewer National Guard unit, worked three hours to haul the truck back onto the highway. The gravel load spilled out onto the ground at the edge of the embankment.

Patrolmen Arthur R. Tripp and Robert Washburn investigated the accident.

100 years ago – Sept. 25, 1908

MILFORD – In the great fire at Milford, some 9 million feet of piles aggregating 18 million feet of pine boards were burned, causing a loss estimated at $75,000, 90 percent of which is covered by insurance.

One half of the burned lumber was owned by the Jordan Lumber Co. of Old Town; the remainder of about equal proportions is owned by G.W. Barker & Son of Milford and John Cassidy of Bangor.

There is nothing, so far as can be learned, to substantiate the rumor of incendiarism, it being the general conclusion that the fire was caused by a carelessly thrown cigar stump.

It was a spectacular fire, witnessed by almost the entire population of Milford, with hundreds from Old Town and considerable numbers from all along the river down to Bangor.

The Milford firemen were reinforced by companies from Old Town, while Bangor sent a steamer and crew of 15 men.

The cemetery was surrounded by flames at one time, and had not the Bangor and Old Town men run two lines of hose through the woods and underbrush for nearly half a mile, it is very doubtful if the towns of Bradley and lower Milford could have been saved.

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BUCKSPORT – Mrs. R.B. Randall, still at her summer home at Alamoosook Lake, had the misfortune to get her hand caught on the crank of her motor boat, which resulted in the breaking of the small bone of the arm just above the wrist.

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OLD TOWN – The Old Town Fire Department did heroic work at the Milford fire and they, in company with other firemen, deserve great credit for the great amount of work accomplished in the face of such difficulties.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin