This uncredited photograph, which ran on page 9 of the Dec. 7, 1979, Portland Evening Express, shows Gorham’s old railroad station on Elm Street shortly before its renovation into The Gorham Station, a 90-seat restaurant. Pictured from left are Gorham Town Manager Donald Gerrish, restaurant owner Richard Groton and Town Council chairman C. Russell Boothby.

An excerpt from the accompanying story by correspondent Debra Kaufman:

Additional Photos

48 Elm St., now the Sebago Brewing Co., in Gorham on July 2, 2014.

“The wood frame station, built in 1853, has been boarded up and idle since the late 1950’s, but now it’s bustling with activity again…

“Groton, who has been consulting with the Gorham Historical Society about the station’s past, said the station was built in 1853 by the Cumberland-York Railroad… The trains carried freight, especially lumber, and passengers, between Gorham and Sanford. The Sanford & Eastern Railroad bought the line in 1941, and that line owned the station until the late 1950s, when the once-booming textile industry started declining.”

The Portland Room of the Portland Public Library is in the process of organizing and conserving the archival collection of original Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram and Evening Express photographic negatives — a major collection that spans from 1937 to 2005. Find more photos at www.pressherald.com/flashback/.