[1] Hoping to compete with the Republican-leaning Lewiston Evening Journal, it proclaimed itself in its first issue as "the only Democratic daily paper published in central Maine.

"[2] Five years later, it was purchased by George W. Wood, who merged the paper with his weekly Maine Statesman and changed its editorial stance.

In its first two decades, circulation quadrupled from 2,000 copies per day to 8,000, thanks largely to the arrival of Rural Free Delivery in the region.

[4] On his death in 1945, Wood left the paper to his general manager and nephew by marriage, Louis B. Costello.

"[6] Still, manager Costello stressed the importance of journalistic objectivity to those who worked under him, and both papers gained a reputation for being socially progressive but not so much as to alienate readers averse to change.