Aug. 21, 1991

Bob was a beast! Hurricane Bob broke buses, ruined roads, put a paper mill out of business for a day and put a big crimp in everyone’s Monday this week. His 8.08 inches of rainfall in Gorham might be a record. For sure he made this the wettest August in Maine in history. Damage included downed trees and power lines in the area. Children were seen on floats on a flooded Wayside Drive. The Presumpscot River rushing over the dam at Saccarappa Falls flowed over the island at the end of the bridge to the old Dana Warp Mill. Down below the falls, a chunk of the banking below the city parking lot of Ash Street was washed out.

Ninety marijuana plants, including some 6 feet tall, with buds “as big as your fist,” were pulled up last week by state drug enforcement agents at two locations along the Central Maine Power line in the Prides Corner area of Westbrook. David Kurz, assistant director of the state Bureau of Intergovernmental Drug Enforcement, said 67 plants were pulled up on the power line off Mill Brook, and 23 off Brook Street. Agents discovered the plots while flying over in a helicopter last Wednesday. Kurz said the plants were burned at the Regional Waste System’s incinerator in Portland, No investigation or prosecution is planned. “We just want to get it off the streets,” he said.

Peter Eckel has new sympathy for how his boss felt this spring. He now has a limb under repair, too. Eckel is administrative assistant to Westbrook Mayor Fred C. Wescott. Eckel broke the fibula in his left leg playing basketball Wednesday and won’t get the cast off until mid-September. Wescott’s right arm is in a sling for a month after he tore a ligament doing chores.

The estate of Agnes Gibbs, a North Gorham resident who was a radio and television pioneer in Maine in the 1940s and ’50s, will be auctioned off Aug. 23 at her former North Gorham Road home. Gibbs, who died May 27 at the age of 86, was a world traveler. Born in Beirut, she moved to Maine in 1927 to begin a job with the Maine Extension Service as a home demonstration agent. In 1946 she began hosting a program on WCSH radio called “Here’s Agnes Gibbs.” When TV came along, she was before the camera to host a cooking show on WCSH’s new station, where she often hosted stage and screen starts who were in Maine for summer theater appearances.

Advertisement: The Bus Stop, 888 Main St., Westbrook. Stop in Westbrook for 2 floors of fun. New pool table downstairs. Friday Funky Dance Contest. Saturday Night Limbo Contest.

Aug. 22, 2001

Westbrook Mayor Donald Esty said Monday that the city had settled on the Exxon station at Main Street and the Westbrook Arterial, and adjacent properties, as the best location for a proposed $8 million fire, police and rescue center. The city is negotiating with the owners, he announced after the City Council met behind closed doors Monday evening with chiefs of the police, fire and rescue services.

“We know it started on the outside,” Westbrook Fire Chief Gary Littlefield said yesterday. That’s about all he could say about the fire that consumed the attached barn and heavily damaged three apartments at the 150 Main St. home of Robert Porell in mid-afternoon Saturday. Four Westbrook fire trucks responded to the scene. Heat, smoke, soot and water damaged much o the contents of the downstairs ell apartment occupied by Marty and Shirley Pizzo. The apartment above them was also damaged. The Pizzos sold their Bridge Street house last year, and Marty lamented, at the fire scene, that they gave up homeowners’ insurance then, so there was no coverage for their losses.

Armyworms and dry weather may mean a feed shortage this winter on area farms. In Gorham, dairy farmer Bob Parsons, Buck Street, said armyworms marching through his hay fields in hungry brigades destroyed 40 acres of grass, some of which was munched to sod level. The first hay crop of the season, usually cut in early June, was impacted by dry spring conditions. Then the armyworms came.

Hank and Patty Brown are reopening Frenchtown Variety, 206 Brown St., Westbrook. “We’re trying to do our part to improve the neighborhood and give them a quality store in the old tradition,” Hank Brown said. He’s welcoming the neighborhood to a grand opening on Friday. The store is named Frenchtown Variety “because that’s what it used to be,” after a brief stretch under another name. Brown and his wife bought the building from Jim Martin, who operated the store for several years. Hank and Patty have owned another Westbrook institution, the Beaver Pond Variety on Bracket Street, for a little over a year. They’re keeping that and running both stores.

From Anne Foote’s Ramblings column: I stopped last week for a visit with Isabelle LeBorgne at her apartment at Larrabee Village, Westbrook. Isabelle is 94 years old and amazes me. She always keeps informed, on politics, current events and the local scene, too. We used to see her frequently when she lived in her apartment over LeTarte’s ski shop, opposite our former Main Street office.

The Gorham Town Council refused Aug. 7 to ask voters in November if they want a community swimming pool. One factor in the decision is a report by Town Councilor Matthew Robinson predicting operating costs of $321,404 a year, and warning not to expect high revenues. Construction costs for an eight-lane, 25-meter pool was estimated at $3.1 million. Friends of the pool didn’t give up hope with the turn-down. They had a booth and a group in the parade at Gorham’s Family Fair Saturday and are planning other steps.

This photo, taken around 1900, shows John Clark standing in front of his store that was located on Bridgton Road at Brook Street. The store was originally built by Charles Gallison in the early 1870s. In 1876, Clark started working for Gallison and purchased the store in 1890. Clark became the area postmaster and built an addition to his store in 1899 to serve as the post office. In 1905, Clark retired and the store was torn down. The house behind the store was occupied by Clark and his family and is presently an apartment house. To see more historical photos and artifacts, visit the Westbrook Historical Society at the Fred C. Wescott Building, 426 Bridge St. It is open Tuesdays and Saturdays, 9 a.m.-noon, and the first Wednesday of each month at 1:30 p.m., September-June. Inquiries can be emailed to westhistorical@myfairpoint.net. The website is www.westbrookhistoricalsociety.org. Photo and research courtesy of Mike Sanphy