Portland High School Assistant Principal Gunnar Hagstrom Jr. has been selected to become the new principal of Gorham High School, replacing Philip Blood, who resigned in April to work for the state education department. The Gorham School Committee was expected to confirm his appointment on a two-year contract at tonight’s meting. He will be paid $41,000 a year.

A vintage World War II mortar shell assumed to be harmless by a Gorham family turned out to be a live round after it was turned in to Gorham police June 10. Patsy Kimball, who lives with her mother, Frances Wyman, on Woodlawn Avenue in Little Falls, got sick of looking at the 10-pound shell, where it had stood upright like a knick-knack on the mantelpiece. Besides, she said, she had a nagging fear that maybe the war memento was not safe after all. “It made me nervous,” Kimball said. So she called Gorham police.

Bill Clarke, who has been Westbrook’s city clerk for 32 years while continuing to run one of the city’s most prominent farms, cut back to one job last week. He sold all his milking cows. “I’d have had to do it a long time ago if I hadn’t had the other job,” he said. “It’s cost me money to keep on farming.” The sale of Clarke’s herd leaves Westbrook with three working dairy farms: Leroy Wormell on Brook Street, Roger Knight’s Smiling Hill on the County Road and Ira Chamberlain at the Everett Paulsen farm on the Methodist Road. Clarke had been producing milk 50 years at his farm at 333 Spring St. When he began, he was one of 35 Westbrook farmers who had milk routes. He sold milk daily to homes and stores in Westbrook and Windham. The 35 had shrunk to one – Clarke – when he gave up the route in 1960 and turned to wholesaling his milk to Oakhurst Dairy.

The body of a baby, perhaps a newborn, was found inside a vacant house on Mayberry Street in Westbrook last week. Officially what happened is being called an unattended death, but the state police and the attorney general’s offices are investigating, as they would a murder. The state is reserving for the case a strict “no comment on a matter under investigation” approach.

The Westbrook School Committee approved a 1988-89 budget of $12,794,254 Monday night, up $1,862,447, or 17 percent, and calling for a tax rate increase of $2.40. The City Council is still studying a budget for other city expenses that would raise the tax rate 50 cents. The combined increases would raise Westbrook’s present property tax, $32.12 on each $1,000 of property value, to $35.02 – one of the highest tax rates in the area.

Gorham town officials last week were mulling over the June 14 defeat of the proposed municipal center expansion, and wondering whether to place it back on the ballot of November’s general election. The $1.3 million expansion plan was defeated by a vote of 642-502. Council Chairwoman Anne Larrivee said last week she wondered whether people simply didn’t want the expansion, or if they didn’t have enough information available about the proposal. She was not convinced, since the turnout was so low, if the voters had really delivered a clear mandate on the issue.

June 24, 1998

David Gagnon, 59, and his wife Terry, 52, of 26 Emery St. in Westbrook, have visited Alaska five times since 1991. They’re about to make it six. They’ve always gone on commercial airliners. This time, they’ll do it in their own 1976 Cessna 172 four-seater with Dave at the controls, and they’ll see Alaska the barnstorming way. Weather permitting, they’ll take off from the Portland Jetport June 26. Terry has three weeks off from her job in procurement at Sappi. She’ll come back by commercial air after three weeks. Dave, who has retired from engineering consulting, will bring the plane back accompanied by a friend who is a commercial pilot. “Alaska,” he said, beaming. “The fishing is spectacular. The scenery is spectacular. The people are very interesting. Each trip has been as exciting as the first.”

The postal service has chosen the former F.S. Plummer site on 3.2 acres at 25 Mechanic St. for a new Gorham Post Office, and has an option to buy it from its current owner, Northeast Systems Inc., which will keep its office building on the adjoining 1.4 acre parcel. The postal service’s final decision will depend on traffic and environmental studies of the site. Most of the Plummer buildings have been demolished since the home-building company lost the property to Gorham Savings Bank in a foreclosure proceeding. Northeast Systems, a telephone services supplier, bought it in January 1996. The postal service plans a building of 17,173 square feet, five times the site of the present post office, which would serve West Buxton’s routes also. The plans will go before the Gorham Planning Board July 6.

After months of haggling with the Westbrook City Council over a loading zone and parking spaces behind his new bakery, Jack Amato, owner of Amato’s Baker, is about to have the last word. He told the American Journal that T&T Investments, which owns the Main Street building that houses Amato’s Bakery, unearthed the title to the building, which shows the parking lot – all of the land between the building and the sidewalk along the river – belongs to T&T. Amato has been trying to get a dedicated loading zone in the parking spaces behind the building.

The city of Westbrook is inviting members of the public to meet in the Westbrook-Warren Congregational Church from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. June 27 to talk about the future of downtown Westbrook. Called a “charrette,” the meeting is described as “a public forum for residents, merchants and interested people to learn about and contribute to Westbrook’s Downtown Revitalization Plan.” Leading the forum will be Victor Rydlizky, of the Land Design Group, the company from Ellsworth hired by the city to develop a downtown plan.

Among those recently graduating from Boston University were Westbrook residents Lori A. Francoeur, with a bachelor’s degree in health studies, and Jeffrey P. Patten, bachelor’s degree in history.

This photo was taken in the early 1970s, looking down Fitch Street from Main Street. The building on the left was the ladies section of the Men’s Shop. The next building was Bevy’s Rooming House with retail shops on the first floor. The next buildings were the Salvation Army, O.G.K. Robinson woodworking shop, a building recently vacated by Tony’s Donuts that relocated to Portland, an apartment house and a building occupied by Modern Rug Cleaners. (O.G.K. Robinson was a local contractor who built or remodeled many Westbrook buildings through the years. The company went out of business during the urban renewal years. The building on the right was LaVerdiere’s Drug Store on the corner of Main and Fitch streets. The next building was the O.G.K. Robinson warehouse and office building. Family Dollar Store occupies the LaVerdiere’s building and all the other building are gone. CVS Pharmacy occupies a portion of the land on the left. Fitch Street was discontinued between Main Street and William Clarke Drive. To see more historical photos and artifacts, visit the Westbrook Historical Society at the Fred C. Wescott Building, 426 Bridge St. Inquiries can be emailed to [email protected]. The website is www.westbrookhistoricalsociety.org.