100 years ago, 1916
As a demonstration of what highway improvement means, all one has to do is to take a look at Campus Avenue. Up to this year it has been one of the worst in the city. Every rainstorm has left it a mud porridge. Last year the public works department went to work on the street between Sabattus Street and Central Avenue. They carted in much gravel and rolled it and had a general fixing-up bee. The result has been that this year it is one of the best thoroughfares in the city, with very little mud, even after the worst storms.

50 years ago, 1966
Now, we’ve “herd” of it all! Auburn financier Richarde W. Sampson, proprietor of the Sampson Supermarket chain, has moved his herd of American buffalo to Auburn. Sampson, who was located at his new warehousing and office complex on Washington Street this forenoon, reported that the buffalo, all 16 of them, were moved here recently from Skowhegan, where they have been corralled for nearly a decade. The businessman declined to indicate exactly where on his Washington Street property the animals are located, stating only that they are presently being quartered in a temporary enclosure in a wooded area. “We’re going to fix up a 40-acre area for them but it will probably take close to six months before the posts are set and the fencing is in place,” Sampson told the Journal.

25 years ago, 1991
Teacher aides/assistants and secretaries in the Auburn Education Association made Maine labor history Monday by voting 44-6 to approve a merger of their collective bargaining units. “It feels pretty good,” said union member Ann Dube. The successful vote culminated a full year’s efforts to form an educational support personnel (or ESP) unit within the union, which also represents the city’s public school teachers. The Auburn election marked the first time that existing union groups cast ballots to join forces since the state’s Municipal Public Employees Labor Relations Law was amended in 1989 to allow such mergers.

The material in Looking Back is reproduced exactly as it originally appeared, although misspellings and errors made at that time may be edited.