The death of Hollywood's greatest heartthrob dominates this Maine paper as Rudolph Valentino's body speeds westward by train to his final resting place. The "great lover of the screen" died unexpectedly, and now his flower-banked funeral car races through the night accompanied by his rumored fiancée, Polish movie star Pola Negri. The train will make brief stops in Chicago, Kansas City, and at desert locations where Valentino filmed his first motion picture that launched his career as "the original sheik of the movies." Closer to home, the Central Maine Fair in Waterville drew a record crowd of 13,000 despite Governor Brewster's absence due to campaign work. Peter Kennedy, a bay gelding holding the track record, easily won the Free-for-All race, while fairgoers enjoyed portions of roasted ox handed out to the crowd. Meanwhile, violence erupted near the Togus veterans' home when Henry Beatty was shot in the groin during what officers called a "drunken brawl" at camps along Togus stream, where investigators found four rifles, a shotgun, and several beer parties in progress.

This front page captures America at a fascinating crossroads in 1926. Valentino's death represents the growing power of Hollywood's star system and America's obsession with celebrity culture, while the international political tensions brewing show a nation still hesitant about world engagement. The Republican primary results from California reflect the party's internal struggle between progressive reformers like Hiram Johnson and establishment figures backing President Coolidge. The local stories reveal the social tensions of Prohibition-era America, with bootlegging violence reaching even veterans' communities, while traditional rural life continues at county fairs complete with horse racing and community barbecues.

• The newspaper cost just three cents in 1926 — equivalent to about 50 cents today, making daily news incredibly affordable
• At the Central Maine Fair, they were literally handing out portions of roasted ox to the 13,000 attendees as a crowd attraction
• The shooting suspect Edward Deschamps had an arsenal in his camp including 'four rifles and a shot gun' plus home-brewed beer, showing how elaborate some Prohibition-era operations had become
• A Massachusetts man got three months in jail for attacking a Syrian Orthodox priest by grabbing him 'by the neck of his clerical collar' — the judge called it the first such incident he'd heard of in the city
• The paper's weather forecast shows sunrise at 5:02 AM and sunset at 6:15 PM, with the day's length listed as 13 hours and 13 minutes

• Pola Negri, riding that funeral train with Valentino's body, would later claim they were secretly married — a story most historians doubt, but it helped cement her own Hollywood legend
• The Peter Kennedy horse winning at the Central Maine Fair ran the mile in 2:09½ — remarkably fast for 1926, when the world record for harness racing was only about 10 seconds faster
• That California primary battle between Governor Richardson and Lieutenant Governor Young reflected a national Republican split that would eventually contribute to Herbert Hoover's nomination in 1928
• The Togus veterans' home where Henry Beatty lived was established in 1866 for Civil War veterans — by 1926, it housed aging Union soldiers alongside younger World War I vets
• The world court debate mentioned features Canadian Sir George Foster criticizing American 'exceptionalism' — the same tensions about international engagement that would keep the U.S. out of the League of Nations entirely