The Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul towers are I68 feet tall.
850 Bates alumni live in Lewiston, Auburn and nearby towns.
The Lewiston City Hall weather vane is I7 feet long.
Lunar Lewiston Chip Ross, whose day job is professor of mathematics, took this photograph of the Lewiston cityscape last October using a long, 10-second exposure. His shooting location was atop a parking garage across the Androscoggin River in Auburn. “Behind the iconic smokestack are the lights of the Bates Mill Complex,” he says. “The clouds are lit by the moon, several degrees above the horizon and very bright.” The photograph won a People’s Choice award in the annual Bates Employee Photo Contest.
What’s in a Name? Pettengill is the name of our social-science building, but
the Lewiston street and elementary school are each spelled “Pettingill.” Meanwhile, the Auburn park is “Pettengill.” Here’s your P’gill guide:
The Hall:
A native of Pembroke, N.H., Frederick B. “Pat” Pettengill ’31 was called “Mr. Bates” for recruiting many students from the Syracuse, N.Y., area. When he died, in 1986, a small bequest (including proceeds from the sale of his Chrysler car) created a scholarship endowment. That was just the beginning. In 1999, his widow, Ursula, gave $5 million to name Pettengill Hall. The Street:
A block north of campus, Pettingill Street is named for David Pettingill, Lewiston’s second settler. “The Pettingills were a fighting race,” noted the Lewiston Evening Journal, and David fought and died at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777.
The School:
Built in 1926 and closed in 2008, Pettingill School was named not for the nearby street but for Lee Duren Pettingill, a leading citizen of the early 1900s. (His relation to David Pettingill: unknown.) The two-plus acres will become a park, Pettingill School Park. Park Deux:
In 1947, Auburn used 20 acres bought years before from William Wallace Pettengill to create a recreation area, Pettengill Park. It cost $20,091, or about $342,000 in today’s dollars. But There’s More:
The name is said to mean “someone from Portugal.” A retired Social Security analyst, Robert Pettengill, found 41 variant spellings — including Patongille, Pattainggal and Petynghale — among the 5,700 Americans with the surname. Left, near campus is the street named Pettingill, one of many spellings of a word that means “someone from Portugal.” Fall 2014
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