100 Years Ago: 1922

Following the sale of all of his theatrical holdings, and his formal retirement as vice president of the Maine and New Hampshire Theater Company, William F. Carrigan stated that he does not intend to return to organized baseball. Complete details of the big transfer were given in late editions of the Lewiston Evening Journal Saturday. When the news reached Boston, sporting writers immediately scented a big story: Bill’s possible return to the Red Sox fold. Heaven knows he’s needed to retrieve something from the wreck made by Frasee of Boston’s baseball hopes, but apparently, nothing is further from his mind. He stated positively to the Boston writers that he is out of professional baseball. He doesn’t have to!  Extensive as were his theatrical holdings, they represented only a part of his business interests.

50 Years Ago: 1972

The Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, which has been leasing space in the RCA building on Lisbon Road, and employing well over 100 people has purchased the structure, a move which will allow about 300 jobs by the end of 1973. Announcement of the purchase was made by Mayor Robert W. Clifford and Economic Development Director Francis P. O’Connell. Liberty Mutual has been leasing 10,000 square feet of space. The additional 104,810 square feet now available to it will be used to expand the Boston based insurance firm’s Lewiston operation nearly four times.

25 Years Ago: 1997

When Connie Lyons takes a call at work, it might be anything from a hand stuck in an automatic teller machine to a heart attack. Or it could be even worse. One of the toughest calls she’s taken in 17 years as an emergency dispatcher came about 10 years ago when the caller reported a stroke. The victim was Lyons’ mother. “It’s a life-and-death position you’re in,” the 60-year-old Auburn native said of the job from which she retires Tuesday. “Happy times and sad times, birth and death, and everything in between.” An Oxford resident with a husband of 41 years, Eddie, six grown children and 12 grand-grandchildren, Lyons looks back on a career full of stress, a struggle to block out her emotions and frequent reward of knowing she has helped someone in a crisis.

The material used in Looking Back is produced exactly as it originally appeared although misspellings and errors may be corrected.