March 1, 1989

After 49 years in Westbrook, Blue Rock Industries may move its main office out because of a year-and-a-half stalemate over its plans for a new office building on Spring Street. Lloyd Lathrop, Blue Rock president, confirmed Thursday that Blue Rock has both optioned land and bought land “elsewhere.” He wouldn’t say where. “Our first choice is still Westbrook,” he said. “We bought the Spring Street land for that purpose. But if I can’t build it there …” The land Blue Rock bought on Spring Street near the County Road, originally zoned for industry, was rezoned for Residential-Farming-Conservation as the insistence of Pine View Acres neighbors, and Blue Rock was told last year that the zone rule won’t allow the office building.

Gorham Town Councilors Carol Day, Thad Moody and Dean Evans have come out against a proposed ordinance that would provide more flexible rules for developers of large parcels of land in the town. The proposed Planned Unit Development Ordinance, which has been in the drafting stage for the past two years, will likely come to the council for a vote in April. However, it’s unclear which way the vote will go.

The Westbrook School Committee on Monday unanimously agreed to establish a day care center at Westbrook High School, after School Superintendent Edward Connolly said he expects to reduce its cost to $40,000 by not using a portable classroom as originally planned. The controversial proposal drew about 50 people to the meeting.

Marland Wing is waiting for the city of Westbrook to sign the deed so that he can begin moving the Warren parsonage to its new home farther out Cumberland Street. The house will be cut into three sections and moved during low-traffic hours.

Traffic was the topic Thursday night when 25 Gorham residents turned out at the Municipal Center to offer their solutions to the traffic problems, with ideas ranging from adding traffic lights to changing pavement markings. The meeting was the first of three to be held as part of the $7,000 study being conducted by William Eaton of T.Y. Lin International-Hunter Ballew Associates of Falmouth. Eaton said the study would develop several alternative strategies for short-term traffic improvements and then select one. The final results are due in late April.

Caroline and Ronald Pease, Narragansett Street, Gorham, traveled to Rockland recently to take her mother, Mrs. Helen Wood, out for dinner in honor of her 84th birthday.

Cumberland County commissioners have issued a Request for Proposals for potential sites for construction of a new county jail. Proposals are due by Thursday, March 9.

March 3, 1999

Mosher’s Corner in Gorham may get stoplights soon, and it may get much more, as well. One rumor names Shaw’s supermarket or Target department store as having bought 30 acres in the area. Neighbors, including Albert Mosher, whose family farm dominates the corner, report receiving offers to buy their land. The agenda for last night’s Town Council meeting included an item that would look at relieving traffic congestion at the corner, at the intersection of lower Main Street and Route 237 – maybe installing a traffic signal, Town Manager David Cole hinted.

Gary Littlefield, 50, a deputy fire chief in South Portland, was named Friday and confirmed Monday by the City Council as Westbrook’s new fire chief. He replaces Byron Rogers, who drew grins when he showed up at the council meeting in his retirement garb, a civilian suit. Littlefield assumes his duties April 5. He started his fire career at age 16, as a member of the Engine 5 call company, where his late father William and older brother William were both members.

The Westbrook School Committee has reopened its search for a successor to retiring School Superintendent Robert Hall. Thirteen applied for the job, seven were interviewed and the job was offered to an out-of-state man. He took another job and three other finalists “weren’t a match for Westbrook” said School Committee Chairwoman Deborah Frank. New candidates have three weeks to apply.

An almost-done, new two-story, two-car garage sits next to the house at 715 Gray Road in Gorham, a house that was nearly destroyed Monday morning by a fire that spread quickly from a basement woodstove. Kenneth Fogg, 70, and his wife Judith, who were at home at the time, were not injured, but two family cats perished. Fogg reported the fire at 7:16 a.m. Thirty-five firefighters from Gorham and Windham spent the next 20 minutes getting a handle on the blaze and the next three hours with axes and chainsaws chasing the last smoldering vestiges of it from between the building’s walls and floorboards.

The Westbrook City Council turned cool Monday on the proposal to move City Planner Jeff Manter to a newly created job of information technology director, with higher pay and an obligation to replace him with another planner, voting against it three times on first reading. “The process would have been better served if we’d addressed the present position and filled it by posting, either externally or internally,” Councilor William Loring said. “I don’t believe we should anoint someone for a position that was just created.”

50 YEARS AGO

The Westbrook American reported on Feb. 26, 1964, that Wayne Smith, son of Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Smith of Gorham, wrote that in June he would be aboard a U.S. Navy ship deployed in the Red Sea.

Evelyn Purington of West Buxton entertained the past week Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Waldon of Westbrook.

In 1849, Capt. John Warren built a three-and-a-half story building on Main Street at Bridge Street with retail shops on the first floor. The C.B. Woodman Pharmacy occupied the space on the corner of Main and Bridge streets, later becoming Vallee Pharmacy, operated by Charles Vallee, father of entertainer Rudy Vallee. The upper floors were divided into offices, apartments and a meeting hall. On Feb. 13, 1942, a fire destroyed the upper floors of the building. Local contractor O.G.K. Robinson demolished what was left of the upper floors and then rebuilt the first floor as retail space. Vallee Pharmacy reopened and remained in business into the early 1970s. The first floor has been remodeled and is occupied by several businesses. 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.