Twenty years ago — 1998

A Jerry Reilly sports column asks the question, “Did Bills leave Fredonia State for good?” Following the close of the Bills’ training camp at Fredonia for another year, Head Coach Wade Phillips expressed that if he has his way, there will be a 19th summer at Fredonia State for the Buffalo Bills. However, as Reilly points out, there are marketing people in the Bills’ organization who might just as well see the team training somewhere else — Rochester, the UB Amherst campus? — if the deal is better and the opportunity to sell luxury suites is enhanced.

Thirty years ago — 1988

The 16th Century replica sailing ship Sea Lion was back at her dock in Mayville this morning with a new main mast in place and re-rigging well under way. The ship, which has had a gap-toothed look since a lightning bolt shattered her original main mast, got the replacement just three weeks and a day after the mishap. The replacement was carried out in the middle of Chautauqua Lake by a mobile crane mounted on the Stow-Bemus Point ferry.

Forty years ago — 1978

Harry Young of 30 Babcock St., Silver Creek received a surprise of such magnitude on Aug. 4 that he observed “it was like a dream come true.” That day Mr. Young’s sister Tasoula Voytzi announced in a telephone conversation that she would be coming to visit her brother in a few weeks. Mr. Young and his sisters had not seen each other in 60 years. She arrived from Athens, Greece on Aug. 9. This is Mrs. Voytzi’s first trip to America. Mr. Young is the only member of his family to emigrate to the United States.

Fifty years ago — 1968

Pictured is the broken statue of a Civil War soldier, which kept a silent vigil for years in Washington Park and before that in front of the old Dunkirk city hall. It is lying in the waterworks building on Lake Shore Drive West after being toppled by a 180-pound youth who climbed it to retrieve a scarf. The statue was donated to the city in 1907 by the William O. Stevens camp, Sons of Civil War Veterans. It stood in front of city hall until the building burned in December 1923. From there it was moved to Washington Park. City officials say they doubt the statue can be repaired.