A typical report in the Lewiston Weekly Journal in 1886

Let’s just grab a handful of the news items reported on that day to get a sense of what the paper’s local coverage was like in those simpler times.

Francis Lane: First letter from the first editor

The want of a newspaper in this vicinity has long been felt and lamented, and it is the intention so to conduct the Journal that it may be acceptable to all parties, and a profitable visitant at every fireside.

May 21, 1847: First edition, front page

Mark LaFlamme: Working the news beat in 1847

Street Talk: The Lewiston newspaper's very first crime reporter probably spent more time in the taverns down on Lisbon Street than he'd like his editors to know about. But can you blame him?

A former Auburn man’s high-flying ‘airship’ caught the world’s attention in 1897

The true story of the once-acclaimed but now forgotten "Professor Barnard" and his fabulous flying machine

Celebrating 175 years of journalism, and our readers

President Theodore Roosevelt once famously said, 'There are two newspapers that I always like to get a hold of. One is the Philadelphia North American and the other is the Lewiston Evening Journal.'  

‘I look forward to it every day:’ longtime Sun Journal readers reflect on newspaper

As the Sun Journal prepares to celebrate its 175th anniversary Saturday, we asked longtime readers to share what the newspaper has meant to them and why they continue getting the paper each morning.

Allegations spur district attorney to halt private prisoner transports

District Attorney Andrew Robinson referred to a six-page letter written by an Androscoggin County Jail inmate who detailed the account of her five-day trip from Florida to Maine last November caged in the back of a private prisoner transport van during which she was denied bathroom breaks and subjected to other inhumane treatment.

Seeking a safer way: Route 4 drivers say deaths, injuries prove changes needed

More than a dozen years after a Maine Department of Transportation study found Route 4 to be a high-speed, high-volume road with crashes more severe than similar rural highways, residents, city officials, lawmakers and transportation experts are pushing to make the Auburn section safer.

911 where are you?

More and more people are using cell phones to report emergencies, but the mobile 911 system has flaws. Has Maine’s action to raid the fund collected to improve emergency phone service slowed the state’s ability to maintain and improve needed technology?