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June 30, 2003 People opposed to the creation of a national park in the Maine north woods gathered on June 28, 2003, at the Big Moose Inn in Township 1 Range 9 to express their disapproval of the prospect, singing protest songs and hanging cardboard effigies of the Hollywood celebrities that reportedly backed the project. Opponents of the park cited federal government intrusion on the Maine way of life as a main reason for their opposition. While a national park ultimately did not pan out, 13 years later, longtime conservation supporter and Burt’s Bees co-founder Roxanne Quimby donated 87,000 acres to the federal government, and President Barack Obama declared the area the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument on Aug. 14, 2016. Read the BDN front page for June 30, 2003 |
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 | | Â 30 YEARS AGO
July 1, 1993 What was there to do over the long Fourth of July weekend in 1993? Well, you could see the band Dakota — still going strong 30 years later! — at Stacey’s Motel on Wilson Street in Brewer. The next night, you could go just down the street for WKIT’s Coors Light Music Festival, held at Doyle Field in Brewer, and check out The Outlaws, known for its 1970s hit “Green Grass and High Tides.” You could have a lovely dinner at Nickerson Tavern in Searsport. Or, you could catch a flick, like “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” “The Firm,” “Rookie of the Year,” or the Pauly Shore masterpiece “Son in Law” (that’s a joke, people). Read the BDN front page for July 1, 1993 |
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 | | Â 50 YEARS AGO
June 29, 1973 The combined forces of the 112th Medical Company of the Maine Army National Guard, 11 local fire and ambulance departments, three hospitals and community volunteers staged a massive mock plane crash disaster drill at Bangor International Airport on June 28, 1973. Delta Airlines loaned a decommissioned twin engine passenger plane to serve as a crashed plane, and guard members stood in as victims, who were taken by both helicopter and ambulance to area hospitals. Read the BDN front page for June 29, 1973 |
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70 YEARS AGO June 30, 1953
 While telephone booths could be found in many public spaces — train stations, hotel lobbies and municipal buildings, for example — the standalone outdoor telephone booth did not come to eastern Maine until 1953, according to a clipping from June 30 of that year. New England Telephone and Telegraph Company installed 20 such boxes throughout the region that summer, including on State Street in Brewer. At one point, there were hundreds of pay phones all across the state. Today, according to the Maine Public Utilities Commission, just 35 remain as part of the public interest payphone project. Read the BDN front page from June 30, 1953 |
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 | | Â 90 YEARS AGO
June 28, 1933 The first Sears Roebuck department store in Bangor opened in 1933, in the Harlow Street building that today houses the Zillman Art Museum and Eastern Maine Development Corporation. Sears Roebuck was at the peak of its rapid expansion into brick and mortar retail across the country, after previously being mail order only. The downtown Bangor Sears stayed open in that location until 1977, when it closed there and reopened in 1978 in the brand new Bangor Mall. Forty years later, in 2018, it would close alongside hundreds of other Sears locations nationwide, as the company filed for bankruptcy. Read the BDN front page for June 28, 1933 |
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