100 Years Ago: 1923

Unusually large midsummer attendance at the Lewiston-Auburn Rotary Club Friday at the Auburn Y indicates the sustained interest in Rotary matters. Eleven boys are to return Saturday from the Cobbosseecontee Y camp, where they have been placed by the Rotary Club. The boys have had the funnest of summer vacations. One boy who was more profane of speech when he went over to the camp (he may not have been one of the Rotary boys, the case being mentioned by Bill Brenneman during little talk about the boys) said the other day that he noticed that the Y boys over here did not approve of profane talk and they ducked him in the lake and that  made him mad. He swore some more: they ducked him again. They ducked him every time they heard him. “Do you swear now?” he was asked. “Well to tell you the truth, I don’t think of swearing now; it is a bad habit and the boys don’t like  it. I am doing my best to break it and am going to win out.”

50 Years Ago: 1973

Lewiston police detectives today were investigating a weekend break at the Songo Shoe Company on Canal Street, Lewiston, where over $100 cash, several checks, and other items were stolen. Detective Lt. Robert Soucy said the incident was reported Sunday, shortly after 9:30 p.m., by Peter Campbell, superintendent at the company, who told police someone got into the plant, and broke into potato chip and cigarette vending machines, taking about $65 worth of coins, and about 25 cartons of cigarettes. Also missing, police said, were $57 in cash taken from an envelope in a filing cabinet, $50 from a petty cash box, and change from a desk drawer. Six payroll checks were also stolen.

25 Years Ago: 1998

Activists in Portland seeking to legalize the use of marijuana for limited medical purposes vowed Tuesday to press ahead with plans for a 1999 referendum after Maine’s highest court rejected an appeal that would have put the measure on the ballot this November.

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