June 24, 1992

Despite the objections of the S.D. Warren Paper Co., a mile-long portion of the Presumpscot River that has been dry for 140 years will soon be revived as a salmon and trout fishery. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington has ordered Warren to change the way it regulates water releases over the Eel Weir dam in order to implement a state fisheries department plan to bring recreational fishing back to what is called the “Old Course By Pass,” located in Standish. The river at the outlet of Sebago Lake is divided between the Eel Weir Canal and the natural riverbed. Warren controls the lake level through water releases at the Eel Weir dam at the outlet. All of the water that goes through the dam is released into the 4,600-foot canal and not the 6,720-foot-long natural riverbed. The canal meets up with the natural river just before the North Gorham pond. When the dam was built in the mid-1800s and the water started going exclusively to the canal, the natural river dried up and the many fish that once populated the area disappeared. However, on July 1, they will start to come back.

The American Journal is launching a general effort to develop additional circulation. Roger V. Snow Jr., the former publisher of the Westbrook American and the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Journal, rejoined the paper’s staff this week to build more circulation. Assisting him, with the goal of recruiting and training carriers, will be Roland Lemay, who also has a long affiliation with the AJ. Both will work part time. Snow and Ray Durgin purchased the Westbrook American in 1953. Durgin left in 1956 to operate a local radio station. Harry T. Foote has been publisher since 1965, when he and John H. Rich Jr. bought the business.

After 98 years of service to Westbrook, Forest Street School has seen its last classes. The School Committee has voted to turn it over to the city by year’s end, and to transfer its Enrichment Center to the high school in September. Perhaps more than any other of the city’s schools, Forest Street has inspired a great loyalty among former students and parents. They successfully resisted attempts to move regular classes out of it until Superintendent Edward Connolly brought it off in the 1980s. The school was built in 1894. What use the city will make of the school has yet to be determined.

Mrs. Virginia Dauphinee, 128 Barstow Road, Gorham, was hostess at a party for her grandson, Shawn Gagne, who is leaving July 5 for two years’ service in the Peace Corps in the Congo. Shawn, who lives with Mrs. Dauphinee, has just graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with degrees in art and architecture.

James Theriault, son of Robert and Nancy Theriault, and Andrew Gray, son of Daniel and Brenda Gray, all of Westbrook, were among the over 220 seventh-graders from Maine who were honored for their outstanding verbal and/or math ability discovered in the 1992 annual Talent Search conducted by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth in Baltimore. The students, who scored well above the mean for high school seniors, received certificates of merit at the state and regional level in an awards ceremony May 31 at Colby College.

June 26, 2002

A draft of a proposed Westbrook gay rights ordinance has been drawn and is on schedule to be taken up by the City Council’s Committee of the Whole before Monday’s City Council meeting. It covers employment, housing, public accommodations and lending policies. The ordinance would mainly prohibit discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, which it defines as “having a preference or orientation, being identified as having a preference or orientation for, or having a history of a preference for heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality.”

Westbrook Deputy Police Chief Paul McCarthy has suggested that the city could move Denis and Kimberly Marier’s apartment house from 13 Haskell St. to another lot in Westbrook, and the Mariers may take the city up on its offer. That would clear the way for the city to get the full parcel it wants for its fire-police-rescue headquarters at Haskell and Main streets without needing to use eminent domain against the Marier building, the last piece needed. McCarthy wouldn’t say where the Marier house would go, but rumor says a lot on Rochester Street is being eyed.

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Tony Direnzo, 1166 Methodist Road, Westbrook, seeing flames shooting 10 feet in the air Friday, did the only thing he could do trying to save his 1996 Honda Goldwing. He battled the fire from 30 feet away, spraying water from a garden hose. But the fire totaled the motorcycle. Direnzo just moments before had taken the bike from his garage and started it up in the yard. “It was a gorgeous bike, it can’t be replaced,” he said.

The possible naming of the Gorham High School library for its longtime librarian, Lorraine Stickney, comes under review by the Gorham School Committee tonight. Earlier this month, the committee asked the Town Council to approve naming the high school gym for longtime coach and athletic director Dean Evans. At that time, the School Committee tabled the library naming, seeking more public input. Those supporting Stickney include the Gorham Teachers Association.

Acting under a 2001 state law, Gorham High School has presented full diplomas to five men who left school to serve in World War II and Korea. The new grads, honored in a ceremony June 12, are Philip Boothby, Stanford Davis, Ashley Pike and George Reichert, all of Gorham; and Ray Reitze, Buxton.

Photo caption: Say hello to … Richard and Debra Willoughby take a moment after breakfast at the new Main Street Café, 888 Main St., Westbrook, just a short walk from their Central Street home. Debra is a preschool teacher in Gorham. Richard is a salesman for Fresh Air Associates. You wouldn’t know it today, but Richard was nearly fatally stabbed in 1992 while bouncing a customer from his former Bus Stop Bar. The incident left him partially paralyzed and he struggled with weight gain as a result. Today, he said with a smile, he remains a proud member of TOPS, Take Off Pounds Sensibly.

The swimming tank in the photo was built in the early 1900s over the Presumpscot River, behind the present day Cornelia Warren Pool. This building gave the young people of Westbrook a place for organized swimming lessons. Private lessons were 10 cents. Boys and girls swam at separate times, never together. Lockers ringed two sides of the pool. There were steps into the pool and a wooden floor that slanted downwards from one end; each year the river was lowered and workers from S.D.Warren Company repaired or replaced the floor covering. A boom and slats around the pool kept the more obvious river flotsam out of the swimming area. A large sewer was just upstream of the swimming tank and the increasing awareness of pollution forced the demolition of the swimming tank in 1947. The Cornelia Warren Association pool was built in 1947-48 by the association with the help of $10,000 raised by the VFW and the American Legion. The City eventually took over the new pool and it serves to this day. The 12 cement piers that once supported the old swimming tank are still visible in the river. 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.