Anyone looking for the window-sized HRHs topping what was the Dunlap Building on Court Street in Auburn this week might have been left scratching their heads.

The letters – short for Hilb, Rogal and Hamilton Co., the insurance firm that purchased Dunlap a couple of years ago – were painted over Monday.

Deborah Dunlap-Avasthi said sign painters had been a bit too quick to cover over Dunlap’s trademark D, which for years appeared on an elevator shaft capping the roof. In their haste, they missed the need to match the HRH corporate logo font, she said.

The proper lettering will likely reappear sometime in the near future, Dunlap-Avasthi said. She also said the company will obtain whatever permits it needs from the city to make the promotional lettering legal.

– Doug Fletcher
Thanks for

the memories

Theodore Pepin carried bags for many famous people as a bellhop at Lewiston’s DeWitt Hotel, he claims.

But only once, when his girlfriend, Carmen, stopped by with a camera in hand, did he get proof – a picture of Bob Hope in the hotel’s hallway.

“I was thinking about his birthday, and I remembered the picture,” Pepin said. “We had all sorts of people come in at that time. I carried bags for Louis Armstrong when he played Lewiston.”

Hope stayed at the DeWitt in 1950 while he was performing at the Lewiston Memorial Armory with Marilyn Maxwell, a member of his national touring troupe. Pepin and Carmen cornered Hope and Maxwell and convinced the pair to let their pictures be taken.

“We got another picture of Maxell coming out of the hotel’s cocktail lounge, but I’m not sure where that one is,” Pepin said.

– Scott Taylor
Yankee Magazine notes Lewiston

Yankee Magazine issued a press release early this week noting Lewiston as an “Editors Pick” for its Maine Art Museum. The release meant to acknowledge the Maine Art Museum Trail, which runs through Lewiston on its way to Orono.

The Bates College Museum of Art on Russell Street is one of seven museums in Maine featured on the trail. The Bates gallery is noted for its collection of works by Lewiston native Marsden Hartley. It is currently closed to the public while a new exhibit is installed.

The trail was mentioned in Yankee’s Travel Guide to New England, which spotlights “must see” destinations. The DeLorme Map Store in Yarmouth, L.L. Bean in Freeport and On the Marsh in Kennebunk were a few of the 16 places on the magazine’s list of destinations in southern Maine.

– Patrick Connors