Compiled By Barbara Scott
Staff Writer
100 YEARS AGO: Feb. 9, 1911
• Another heavy storm Saturday followed by high winds filled the roads and made work for the snowplows.
1986 — The 1986 Miss Caribou will be selected from a field of 10 contestants on Feb. 15 at a pageant scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at the Caribou Middle School. In front, from left, are Michelle Lavalle, Amy Beckwith , Pamela Tracy, Kirsten Saunders and Donna Rauch. In back are Cheryl Hallett, Shannon Whitten, Karen Thompson, Earla Everett and Stacy White.
• Theodore Wallace is a happy man this week, as twin girls arrived at his home Monday morning.
• Prof. Noah V. Baker has recovered from his recent illness and has returned to Houlton, resuming his studies as one of the faculty of Ricker Classical Institute.
• On Friday last Gov. Plaisted announced the appointment of P.L. Hardison of Caribou to be State Highway Commissioner to succeed Paul D. Sargent of Machias. Mr. Hardison was born in Caribou in 1860 and was graduated from Houlton Academy. He took a special course in civil engineering under private tutors and for over 25 years has been engaged in civil engineering in this section of the state, with headquarters in Caribou. For a period of six years he was engaged in similar work in southern California.
• Potatoes have taken another drop in price, selling today for 75 cents per barrel.
• Ernest and Leigh Smith have hauled home four cars of fertilizer for their next potato crop. That does not look as though the small price of potatoes scares them.
75 YEARS AGO: Feb. 6, 1936
• A basketball team, known (or unknown) as the Masked Invaders, is causing considerable curiosity around the town. The players, whose identities are not known, are boys and young men out of high school and at present are located in Caribou. During the game, the boys wear white silk masks which completely cover the head, tying at the back of the neck. Pseudonyms are used in the lineup.
• In the February, 1936, issue of Yankee, the new New England magazine, the winter carnival at Caribou, Feb. 20-22, is listed in the calendar of winter sports events throughout New England. This is the only one of the Aroostook County meets which is so listed.
• Caribou ponies and saddle horses will play a prominent part in the coming winter carnival in this town. In probably no other town in this section is there more interest in saddle riding than there is in Caribou. Interest is increasing constantly and the pony races, which are scheduled for the first day of the carnival, Thursday, will undoubtedly draw large crowds.
• Hundreds of Aroostook potato growers with their wives and families trekked to Presque Isle from every corner of the county Friday through cold and snow banks to tell and be told about the affairs of the Aroostook Production Credit Association — a farm loan co-operation which has not only provided the cash to grow last year’s potatoes but undertook to market, for the farmers, a portion of the crop which they had previously agreed to deliver.
• A new feature has been added to the Aroostook Sportsmen’s Show to be held here this month. S.G. Leonard of the Fish and Game Club is arranging this exhibit. The Aroostook Pioneers constructed their own log cabins, thatching the roofs. Later they used shingles which were handmade uniform in size, very smooth and lacking the band saw marks of today’s machine-sawed shingles. Most of the furniture, such as tables, beds, chairs, chests, cupboards and bootjacks, was also handmade. The open fireplace was the only means of cooking and heating the abode. The men hewed their axe and hammer handles, built their boards and equipment out of the forest.
• The Republican office has gotten out some attractive small circulars advertising the Winter Carnival and Sportsmen’s Show, which were designed particularly for invitations to send to out-of-town folks to attend these events. A large quantity have been sent to the New England Sportsmen’s Show in Boston where they are being distributed by Gordon Fraser.
50 YEARS AGO: Feb. 9, 1961
• In this edition George Whitneck wrote, “ In the Feb. 17, 1916 Aroostook Republican we find that — Tuesday, Feb. 8, 1916 was the 55th anniversary of “Cold Friday” which has gone down in history as the coldest day within the memory of the oldest inhabitants. “Cold Friday” came on Feb. 8, 1861 and contained the two excellent and amiable qualities for cold days — 60 degrees below zero with a strong freezing wind all day.”
“The Republican has printed several items about “Cold Friday” down through the years. Many stories have been told by the oldest inhabitants and the funny part of it is that most of them were true. My father remembered the day well, as he was nine years old at the time and he told me often of how his mother hung patched quilts up in front of the huge fireplace in the log cabin on Eaton Grant and the children hovered in front of the leaping flames from the seasoned rock maple wood and still were not any too warm, because the wind howled and moaned through the chinks between the logs, as the cold crept inside. No man dared venture outdoors, even to feed or water the stock and animals froze still in the hovels.”
“David Collins was on the road toting a load of shaved shingles to Bangor, so Hazen Keech, who was very thoughtful and neighborly put on his wife’s hood and his own great coat and went over to Collins’ to see if they were safe. He was so chilled to the bone when he got there that he scarcely had the strength to lift the latch on the door.”
The late Bailey G. Mitchell, Civil War veteran and highly respected in Caribou, remembered the coldest day ever experienced by man in Aroostook County because he had to carry in the wood that day to keep his family from freezing and the following is handed down from his pen: “Many will remember the ‘Cold Friday’ of Feb. 13, 1861. The sun never shone that day; some said it was not even in the sky. The freezing wind increased as the day wore on and it blowed a line gale all day with a 60 degree below zero freezing.”
