Caribou area From our Files (week of January 9, 2019)

5 years ago

115 Years Ago – Jan. 12,  1904

Nickel in the slot The “nickel in the slot” machines in town were all ordered to be put out of commission Monday.

Record number On Saturday the B&A railroad hauled a record number of potato cars out of Aroostook, there being 84 cars shipped from Houlton and points north. Thirty-five of these were shipped from Caribou and stations north of here.

100 Years Ago – Jan. 15, 1919

Open John Gammon will open his new grocery store and fish market in the concrete building on Sweden Street, vacated Monday by Gammon Bros. drug store on Saturday.

75 Years Ago – Jan. 12, 1944

Christmas Seal campaign — Mrs. Emily Tibbets, chairman of the Caribou Christmas Seal Campaign, announced yesterday $473.15 has been collected for the Anti-Tuberculosis Association. Mrs. Tibbetts said she believed these figures exceeded any collection in Caribou in previous years and that the town had done very well.

50 Years Ago – Jan. 15, 1969

Sale — The sale of approximately 22 acres of land in the Corriveau Subdivision, Access Highway, to the New England Land Company has been successfully negotiated, thus removing the last obstacle to the construction of a proposed $3 million shipping complex in Caribou.  There are indications that W.T. Grant Company is to be one of the builders; that First National Stores will be another, and that at least eight smaller shops are to be constructed in the complex.

Damage About $12,000 damage was caused to potato starch stored in 100-pound bags at Beaver Brook Starch Company’s Fort Fairfield storage depot when a valve in a six-inch pipe of the sprinkler system broke during the night Sunday.  Trouble was suspected by Patrolman Preston Dumond of the the FFPD, when he observed water accumulating outside of the building in the Canadian Pacific Railway yard at about 2 a.m. Monday.

25 Years Ago – Jan. 12, 1994

Governor’s OK The proposed Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone received a boost from the governor Tuesday afternoon with an endorsement tied to state funding.  Gov. John R. McKernan at a news conference in August announced in support of a new bill that will fund $400,000 for the proposed math and science academy. The funding will be included in a financial packaging totally $4 million in federal grants and foundation donations needed to open the academy in September 1995.

Re-elected Aroostook County Commissioners held their annual meeting in Houlton Wednesday evening, and re-elected Normal L. Fournier of Wallagrass as chairman.  It was the fourth straight year that Fournier was tapped to head the three-member panel. Commissioner Paul Adams of Houlton nominated Fournier as chairman and Commissioner John D. McElwee of Caribou seconded the nomination.  The vote was unanimous.