100 years ago, 1913
Edward H. Anderson of Durham has invented a new kind of monkey wrench, which will act like a vice and will hold anything so firmly that there is no slipping. It is said to be a great improvement over the present vice and promises to come into quite general use. Mr. Anderson has sold half interest in the patent to Michael Brownstein of Lewiston and these owners plan to manufacture the wrenches.

50 years ago, 1963
There are rumors making the rounds that the parties interested in creating a shopping center on East Avenue, Lewiston, now have shifted their interest to Auburn, but City Manager Woodbury E. Brackett said yesterday he had heard nothing along this line. To have created a shopping center on East Avenue a change in zoning would have been necessary and this was strongly opposed by homeowners in the area. Brackett did say, however, that there definitely will be a shopping center on the Mower farm property on Center Street where plans were announced more than a year ago. “We have been communicating with two major farms, either of which could become the nucleus around which the shopping center would be built.” He described Center Street as perhaps one of the heaviest traveled in this section of Maine. “When they see the new four-lane highway leading past that land, with the mercury vapor lighting and other things that go with a new modern highway I expect the picture will change quickly.”

25 years ago, 1988
Residents of the Pine Grove area of Crystal Lake in Gray on Wednesday were waiting for insurance adjusters, removing fallen trees, and talking about a strange five-minute storm that hit a half dozen homes on the lake Monday. Damage ranged from a demolished house and car to crushed out-buildings, punctured roofs and uprooted trees in the small area struck by the storm. “I never was so scared in my life,” said Elizabeth Stetson, whose garage roof was broken by a falling oak and whose side yard is strewn with half a dozen large pines and oaks that were uprooted in only a few seconds.
A fifteen-second warning was all they had, said Mike Manzer at a house down the road. “We couldn’t do anything. The water was spraying like a hose against the window.”